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PUBLISHED BY 
THE SUNDAY SCHOOL 

OF 

OF HARRISBURG, PA. 
Rev. GEO. F. STEELING, Pastor. 



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PHILADELPHIA: 



1872. 



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FRANZ, DELITZSCH. 



J. of MORRIS. 




PHILADELPHIA: 
LUTHERAN BOARD OF PUBLICATION, 

42 North Ninth St. 
1873. 



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J 8 r^ 



Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1872, by 

LUTHERAN BOARD OF PUBLICATION, 

in the Office of the Librarian o:P Congress, at Washington. 

STEREOTYPED BY J. FiVjQAN & SON, PHILADELPHIA. 



1" 




OAXTON PRESS OF SHERMAN & CO. 




A N attempt is made in the following 
pages to give, within the space of a 
single day, a striking picture of the minis- 
terial work of Jesus in Galilee. The his- 
torical facts are derived from the Gospels, 
which are illustrated with all the helps of 
exact interpretation and antiquarian research. 
Other less observable features, the result of 
comparison, combination, and deduction, are 
prominently brought out. The representa- 
tion of the localities in their present or 
modern appearance is based, though not 

I* V 



VI PREFACE. 

altogether, upon the works of Robinson ; 
and in their ancient appearance upon Jose- 
phus, and the notices scattered through the 
Talmud and the Midrasch, for which the 
author was by no means limited to the 
quotations from those works by Reland, 
Lightfoot, Schwartz, and Neubauer. The 
illustration of the state of the times and 
popular modes of life are not fictitious, but 
are entirely derived from the most ancient 
Jewish authorities. 

Of course, the mingling together into a 
life-picture the gospel facts with these archae- 
ological researches, is fanciful. And it was 
precisely this feature of the fanciful that was 
the most difficult, because the most respon- 
sible part of the work. All amplification of 
historical tradition, though failing in external 
proof, had to be demonstrated as containing 
internal truth. The popular commotion, 
which the appearance of Christ occasioned. 




PREFACE. Vll 

had to be reproduced in faithful character- 
istic pictures according with the historical 
facts. But, above all, the person of our 
Lord was to be so represented agreeably to 
every phase in his private and public life, 
that every one who honors and loves him 
should say, ^* Even if all that is here related 
is not exactly found in the Scriptures in 
every particular, yet the mode of his appear- 
ing and of his work, of his conduct in soli- 
tude, and of his intercourse with men, could 
not have been essentially different from that 
here set forth." 

The sketching of such a picture is difficult. 
We were conscious all along of the incom- 
parable holiness and tenderness of the subject, 
and that which may now be read without 
trouble, was produced very slowly, and often 
in paragraphs at long intervals. The person 
of Jesus is the greatest mystery and the 
greatest miracle in the history of the world. 



via PREFACE. 

Hence, our task embraced the discussion 
of the most central dogmatic problem, and, 
perhaps, these pages will contribute to its 
correct solution. For, in whatever way the 
question of the mysterious union of the 
divine and human nature in the person of 
Jesus Christ is to be solved (the Talmud also 
reckons " Gahoe our Righteousness " among 
the names of the Messiah), this is certain, 
that the solution is untenable, which divides 
the unity of his personality, or which holds 
confused and imperfect ideas of the truth of 
his humanity. 




THE LOCALITY. 




II 




DAY IN CAPERNAUM. 



I. 

THE LOCALITY. 

NO inland sea of the world Is so 
celebrated as the Lake of Gen- 
esaret. The basin which it fills owes 
its existence to subterranean volcanic 
forces still in operation. The extensive 
basaltic plain which cuts straight through 
the cretaceous mountain-land of Pales- 

13 



14 A DAY IN CAPERNAUM. 

tine extends to Its western bank ; and 
immediately behind the chalk hills of 
the eastern bank there begin again 
basaltic formations of immeasurable 
extent.* The long valley of which it 
forms a part lies so deep under the 
level of the ocean that there is scarcely 
a more profound depression upon the 
surface of the earth.f Through this 
valley, which, like the trenches of a 
fortress, divides West Palestine, the 
proper Canaan, (the land of Israel, in a 
more limited sense,) from East Pales- 
tine, flows the Jordan, descending from 
the foot of Lebanon, and pursuing its 
course through the Sea of Genesaret, 

"^ Fraas, Aus dem Orient, p. 71. 
f Our author had not heard of the cafions of 
Colorado. — Tr. 



THE LOCALITY. 15 

like the Rhine through the Lake of 
Constance, or the Rhone through the 
Lake of Geneva, until it is lost farther 
south in the Dead Sea. It is a pecu- 
liarity of the Holy Land, that in a com- 
paratively narrow space it combines 
the most diversified characters and 
kinds of soil, with the most singular 
and various aspects of landscape. The 
southern half of the Sea of Genesaret, 
that is, the western, where the comb of 
the mountain is less declivitous, and the 
vicinity of Jericho, have the climate and 
vegetation of a tropical country. 

But which century, which historical 
epoch shall we choose, to make our- 
selves familiar with the western shore 
of the Sea of Genesaret? If we 
wander along the borders of the lake 



l6 A DAY IN CAPERNAUM. 

through the six hours' tour from the 
south to the north, where the country is 
still agreeable but more uniform, until we 
reach the mouth of the Jordan, the most 
interesting historical reminiscences will 
be called up at nearly every step we 
take, and it is a question by which we 
shall allow ourselves to be detained. 

Coming from Jerusalem, and trav- 
elling up the valley of the Jordan, we 
meet, at the western end of the sea, 
where the Jordan flows out, a dam rest- 
ing upon arches, which crosses a marshy 
soil, and the remains of a ten-arched 
bridge over the Jordan.* Here lay the 
city of Tarichia, which derives its name 
from its trade in salt fish.f It calls to 

* Robinson, Palestine, 3; 512. Lynches Expe- 
dition, p. 102. 

t Strabo, XVI. 2, 45. 



THE LOCALITY. I7 

mind one of the most terrible scenes of 
the desperate struggle with the Romans, 
which terminated in the destruction of 
Jerusalem. In the large number of 
boats which the people had ft their dis- 
posal, the sea offered them an appar- 
ently secure place of retreat; and on 
the land side, Josephus, the future his- 
torian of this war, the friend of his 
countrymen only in as far as he could 
gain renown and not endanger his life, 
had fortified the city to some extent. 
But after Titus, sent by his father Ves- 
pasian the General, had overwhelmed 
the undisciplined troops of Tarichia in 
open battle, he was the very first man 
who rushed into the city. It was taken 
by surprise without opposition, for the 
inhabitants desired peace, and left the 



l8 A DAY IN CAPERNAUM. 

war fanatics in the lurch. But the Ro- 
mans slaughtered the armed and the 
unarmed without distinction, and as a 
great number of the inhabitants had 
fled to their boats, and floated about 
upon the lake, Vespasian ordered rafts 
to be constructed with all possible speed, 
which he manned with troops. The 
people in the boats could not for a 
moment think of resistance in the regu- 
lar order of battle. The stones which 
they threw fell harmless against the 
shields of the Romans. If a boat 
neared the rafts, it was either run down, 
or the Romans boarded it, and slew the 
fugitives. Those who attempted to 
escape from the sword and spear by 
swimming, were pierced by arrows or 
were run over by the rafts; if any at- 



THE LOCALITY. I9 

tempted to hold on to the rafts, their 
heads or hands were cut off. The 
boats which held out the longest were 
surrounded, and the people in them 
were either drowned, or put to death, 
when they had reached the shore, by the 
troops stationed all along the banks, 
Josephus estimates the number of those 
slain in Tarichia and on the lake at 
6; 500. The sea was like a great pool 
of blood, and the shores were for a long 
time covered with the'wrecked vessels 
and dead bodies, which, decomposing in 
the hot sun, poisoned the atmosphere.* 
We do not feel disposed to dwell upon 
the enormities of this unhappy war, in 
which the Jewish national pride was 
humbled, and the national body bled 
* Josephus, Wars, III. 10. 



20 A DAY IN CAPERNAUM. 

itself to death amid terrible convulsions. 
The history of the present times has 
satiated us with pictures of bloody war. 
From the spot where Tarichia stood 
we will enter upon the road which, run- 
ning along the lake, leads downwards 
towards Tiberias. After we have pro- 
ceeded one hour, we have before us, to 
the left from the edge of the shore, the 
celebrated warm springs of Tiberias ; * 
the old and new bath-house, and the 
arched basin from which the water from 
the principal spring, nearly to boiling 
heat, is conducted to the new bath- 
house. An accurate chemical analysis 
has not yet been made of it ; but it will 
no doubt establish the proximate simi- 
larity between these waters, still exten- 
*B.eland, Palaestina, p. 301. 



THE LOCALITY. 21 

sively used, and the alkaline sulphur 
springs of Aix-la-Chapelle. 

The present Tobarije lies half an 
hour farther downwards in a narrow 
valley, at the foot of a range of hills 
here rather precipitous. The ruins 
which we observe, however, show that 
the ancient city extended nearly to the 
hot springs ; these ruins consist of old 
foundations and walls and granite col- 
umns lying around, one of which is still 
standing. How often Tiberias has 
changed masters! It has been under 
the dominion of the Western Roman 
Emperors, of the Eastern Roman Em- 
perors, of the Caliphs, of the Crusaders, 
of the Turks, and for a short time also 
of Napoleon Bonaparte ; but no more 
terrible calamity ever befell it than 



22 A DAY IN CAPERNAUM. 

on January ist, 1837, when an earth- 
quake buried a fourth part of the inhab- 
itants (nearly seven hundred) under 
the ruins of their houses. During the 
Roman war, the city remained un- 
harmed ; it bore the name of the em- 
peror Tiberius. The emperor Nero 
had presented it to Agrippa, the king 
of Judea; and when Vespasian was en- 
camped with three legions at the south 
end of the sea, the people abandoned 
the revolution, the leaders of which had 
until now held them in terror, and 
begged for mercy. Thus rescued, 
Tiberias was for the following centuries 
the chief point of all those exertions 
which were directed to the self-main- 
tenance of the Jewish nationality in its 
moral unity and greatness. But in an- 



THE LOCALITY. 2$ 

Other respect It was the point of de- 
pression to which its former greatness 
sunk. The Sanhedrim had been de- 
prived of its former place of meeting in 
the Temple ; it wandered, as the Talmud 
says, from place to place, until it was 
finally transferred from Sepphoris, the 
chief town of Galilee, to the deep valley 
basin of Tiberias.* Among the signs 
that were to accompany the appearance 
of the Messiah, was, according to the 
Talmud, the fact that Galilee was to be 
desolated, and that the waters of the 
Jordan flowing out of the grotto of 
Paneas would be changed into blood.-|- 

* According to Lynches measurement, the sur- 
face of the Lake of Tiberias is 612 feet below the 
Mediterranean, and that of the Dead Sea is 1,235 
feet below it. 

fSota, IX. 15. Sanhedrim, 97a. 



24 A DAY IN CAPERNAUM. 

When the Romans advanced to the siege 
of Jerusalem, they had already over- 
thrown Galilee and changed it into a 
heap of dead bodies and ruins. The 
sign had been realized ; but Judaism, 
notwithstanding, transferred the hope 
of the Messiah to the future, and asso- 
ciated it with Tiberias. From Tiberias, 
they said, will the redemption of Israel 
proceed ; in Tiberias will the great 
Court of Judgment be re-established 
and emigrate to the Temple ; in Tiberias 
the resurrection of the dead will occur 
forty days earlier than anywhere else. 
The abundance of events and legends 
which Tiberias presents to us might 
tempt us to halt at that city. The 
Sea of Genesaret, which is regarded 
as the one chosen of God out of the 



THE LOCALITY. 2$ 

seven lakes of the Holy Land,* has 
been named after this city, the Lake of 
Tiberias. But we are constrained to 
proceed farther. Farewell, Tiberias 
schetoba reifathahy whose aspect is 
beautiful as thy name imports.^ 
Neither the tomb of Zippora, the 
daughter of Jethro, nor the grave of 
Rabbi Akiba, — nor all thy celebrated 
groves can detain us. We wander 
farther to seek life among the living, 
and not among the dead. 

The road farther upwards from the 
sea now leads from the low grounds of 

*Otho, Lex. Rabbinico — PhiloL, under the 
word Gennasareticum mare, 

f See the Hebrew eulogy on Tiberias in Frankl, 
Nach Jerusalem, 2, 369. 



26 A DAY IN CAPERNAUM. 

Tiberias, across the foot of the hill 
which reaches close down to the shore. 
We pass a narrow valley, through 
which the road to Damascus from 
Tabor here enters ours. Here it ex- 
tends some distance over level ground 
on which grow clumps of oleander and 
Nebek {^Zizyphus lotus), and to our left 
meander rippling brooks ; then the hill 
stretches again down towards the 
shore, and the lake, as we proceed a 
little farther, lies at our feet. After we 
have proceeded an hour from Tiberias, 
there expands before us a plain which 
is enclosed by hills ; and amid these 
craggy, deeply cleft hills lies Magdala, 
formerly a rich and luxurious city, but 
now reduced to a wretched village. 
We cannot hear it mentioned, much 



THE LOCALITY. 2/ 

less see It, without being reminded of 
that woman from whose mind the cloud 
of uncertainty was dispelled by that 
single word '' Mary/' uttered by Him 
whom she supposed was the gardener 
of Joseph of Arimathea, and who then 
fell down adoringly at his feet with the 
exclamation " Rabboni ! '' But, impres- 
sively as Magdala reminds us of this 
interesting and touching event, yet this 
is not the place where we are to halt, 
for the Master stands higher in our es- 
timation than all his male or female 
disciples. 

A quarter of an hour west of Mag- 
dala opens the deep ravine of Wadi 
Hamam, that is, " valley of wild doves,'' 
containing caves on both sides of the 
steep walls formerly connected with an 



28 A DAY IN CAPERNAUM. 

immense fortification ; here in the times 
of King Herod bold adventurers had 
strongly established themselves, who 
proudly defied the Idumaean Roman gov- 
ernment. Herod conquered them in 
battle, and then he exterminated the fu- 
gitives and those who remained in the 
caves, by letting down the boldest and 
strongest of his men in open boxes 
to the apertures of the caves in the 
steep declivities. They all preferred 
death to capture ; one of them slew his 
seven children in calling one after 
another to the mouth of the cave ; and 
as Herod, from a distance, was a witness 
of this tragedy, he, by a significant mo- 
tion of his hand, begged the inhuman 
father to desist; but he cursed the 
Edomitish usurper, and finally killed his 



THE LOCALITY. 29 

wife ; and throwing her body down the 
precipice, he hurled himself after her 
and was dashed to pieces upon the 
rocks below.* The ruins of Irbid, the 
ancient Arbel, which we have before us, 
after a quarter of an hours steep as- 
cent, awaken more pleasant reminis- 
cences. From this place, formerly 
opulent and celebrated for its cultiva- 
tion of grain and manufacture of ropes, 
came originally the family of Nittai the 
Arbelite, so distinguished in the history 
of the Sanhedrim, whose motto was, 
"Withdraw far from a bad neighbor, 
and do not make common cause with 
the ungodly, and hold fast to the hope 
of a righteous retribution." f Here, at 

* Josephus, Wars, I. 16, 2-4. 
f Graetz, Geschichte der Juden, 3, 107. 
3* 



30 A DAY IN CAPERNAUM. 

the edge of the hill, which looks into 
the deep ravine, and towards Magdala, 
Rabbi Chija, of Babylon, and Rabbi 
Simon Ben-Chalefta, of Sepphoris, in 
former times took their position before 
sunrise, and spoke of the destiny of 
their people, who had, not long before, 
witnessed the unsuccessful uprising un- 
der the pretended Messiah, Barcochba, 
and the bloody persecution under the 
emperor Hadrian. There became visi- 
ble the '' hind of the dawn,'' that is, the 
first rays of the morning sun, which were 
compared by the Semites to the antlers 
of the stag or a gazelle, and there they 
first broke through the rosy eastern sky. 
" Birabbi,'* said Rabbi Chija, whilst with 
this honored title he held fast to Rabbi 
Simon, and directing his attention to the 



THE LOCALITY, 3I 

first blush of the morning sun, rever- 
ently exclaimed, "That is a picture of 
the redemption of Israel. It begins 
small and indistinct, as the prophet 
Micah, ch. vii. 8, says, *When I sit in 
darkness, the Lord will be a light unto 
me,' but only to grow more brilliant in 
its increasing glory, as Mordecai once 
sat in the gate of the palace to learn the 
fate of Esther, but afterwards, clothed 
in royal purple, and mounted on horse- 
back, became the light and joy of his 
people," {Esther ii. 20; viii. 15.) But 
has not the sun of redemption already 
risen, and, as Ps. 22 shows, have not his 
morning rays flashed through the bloody 
red? Hence we will again grasp the 
wanderer's staff^ after we have imagined 
ourselves back again in the ancient 



32 A DAY IN CAPERNAUM. 

Arbel, and in its old synagogue, while 
seated for a while upon one of these 
columns which formerly supported it, 
but which now lie around in melancholy 
confusion. After this brief repose we 
shall again descend to the plain. 

We find ourselves here in the real 
valley of Ginnesar, where in ancient 
times, before war after war had deso- 
lated this paradise of a country, the 
date-tree was cultivated, besides other 
excellent fruit-trees. It was here that 
Rabbi Elisha Ben Abeya, of Jerusalem, 
the richly gifted teacher of the law, first 
cherished the germ of dissatisfaction 
with the Jewish religion, which he 
suffered to develop to the poisonous 
fruit of apostasy, by the industrious 
perusal of Greek and especially Gnostic 



THE LOCALITY. 33 

writings. He was a wretched man, who 
through a sinfully inordinate thirst after 
human wisdom and disregard of that 
which is divine, sunk into the lowest 
depth of demoniacal sensuality and' de- 
graded himself so far that Meir Let- 
teris, in his beautiful translation of 
Goethe's Faust, with an exquisite touch 
of his pen, has used him as a substitute 
in place of the German doctor. When 
you find a bird's nest, says a Mosaic 
law,* you may take the young but not 
its mother, but you must first scare her 
away to alleviate her grief, that it may 
be well with thee, and that thou mayest 
prolong thy days. But when Elisha on 
one occasion was sitting in the valley of 
Ginnesar and explaining the law, the 

*Deut. xxii. 6. 
c 



34 A DAY IN CAPERNAUM. 

following circumstance occurred. A 
man climbed to the top of a tree, took 
a nest with the mother and the young, 
and descended unhurt. He saw an- 
other, who waited till the Sabbath was 
over, climbing a tree, who took the 
young and allowed the mother to es- 
cape. On descending, he was bitten by 
a snake and died. "Where is now," 
asked Elisha, "the promised blessing 
and long life upon which this and not 
the other man could count ? " These 
and similar events perplexed him in re- 
lation to God's justice and truth. His 
only support was Rabbi Meir, who was 
not yet weary of learning from the 
apostate, and at the same time exhort- 
ing him to conversion. He once broke 
off his discourse in the midrasch-house 



THE LOCALITY. 35 

of Tiberias, when he heard that Elisha, 
in defiance of the Sabbath, was riding 
through the city, and followed him to 
learn from him and if possible to con- 
vince him of his error. He stood be- 
fore his dying-bed, and brought him at 
least to weeping, after he had given 
himself up as irrecoverably lost. And 
when a sheet of flame rose from the 
grave of the apostate — according to 
the legend — Rabbi Meir threw his 
mantle over it for the purpose of ex- 
tinguishing it, and addressed the dead 
man in the words of the Book of Ruth,* 
'^ Tarry this night {i, e. of death), and it 
shall be in the morning that if He 
(God) will redeem thee, well, let Him 
do it, but if He will not redeem thee, 
*Ruth iii. 13. 



36 A DAY IN CAPERNAUM. 

then will I redeem thee, as the Lord 
liveth: so lie down until the morning." 
It is the same Rabbi Meir, when he was 
dying in Asia, who said to those stand- 
ing round, ** Carry my coffin down to 
the seashore that it may be washed by 
waves which wash the shore of the 
Holy Land ; " and in the consciousness 
of being a saint, and even more than a 
saint, he added, " Tell it to the inhabi- 
tants of Israel that here lies their 
anointed Messiah.'* 

But enough of these tales which tra- 
dition has brought down to us ; we will 
proceed further, for we are beckoned 
on by the reminiscences of a teacher 
who had a better right to such exalted 
self- consciousness than Rabbi Meir. 
The road is enchanting: it leads to a 



THE LOCALITY. 37 

trelllsed way of oleanders, whose rosy 
garlands border a grove of Rebek-like 
trees, olives and figs, on the left ; on the 
right, it skirts along the sea, in which 
the azure blue of the skies is beautifully 
mirrored.* 

After a good quarter of an hour's 
walk, we reach Ain el-madaware, em- 
bowered amid trees and thickets, and 
encompassed with a low, circular wall. 
It is the large basin of a beautiful 
spring abounding in fish, which, irrigat- 
ing the plain, flows towards the lake. 
To gain a survey of this magnificent 
valley of Genesaret, we must not re- 
gard the labor of ascending the hill that 
overlooks this spring. Arrived at the 
summit, we are not a little amazed at 

* Tischen^orff, Reise in dem Orient, ii. 217. 



38 A DAY IN CAPERNAUM. 

observing a man sitting on the outermost 
edge of the hill. The black kaftan im- 
mediately reveals to us a Polish Jew ; 
The Tallith (prayer cloak), which he has 
thrown over his head, and which is 
richly embroidered in that part which 
lies over his round hat, shows that he is 
engaged in prayer, and as he holds the 
Tallith close over his breast, he looks 
neither to the right nor the left, but 
straight forward towards the lake. We 
try to wait until he has finished his 
prayer, but as it seems to come to no 
end, I advance towards him, tap him 
gently upon the shoulder, and salute 
him with the words, " Blessed be he 
whom I here meet upon these sacred 
hills ! " He suddenly rose, but after he 
had thoroughly scanned our ptrsons, he 



THE LOCALITY. 39 

inquired suspiciously, "Are you chil- 
dren of my people ? '' Whilst asking 
this question, his eyes sparkled under 
his bushy brows, which were as white 
as his beard, and betrayed such a grow- 
ing confidence and deep emotion, that I 
might have embraced him, and I enthu- 
siastically exclaimed, " No ; but we are 
the friends of Israel, and such who long 
to see the consolation of Jerusalem ? 
And as we are such, and every inch of 
the Holy Land is important and interest- 
ing to us, you must also tell us why you 
are sitting here. What are you pray- 
ing for here ? What are you observing 
here ? '' " It is a great mystery," he re- 
plied, " which you desire to know, but I 
will not conceal it from you, for God 
has brought us into communion and 



40 A DAY IN CAPERNAUM. 

you have unlocked my heart. For fifty 
years I was Rabbi of a congregation in 
Volhynia and have written nothing, but 
on that account have I been more dili- 
gent in reading and research. Already 
since my boyhood, when I began to 
read Raschi on the Pentateuch and the 
Targum and the Talmud, no subject 
connected with the ancient legends has 
so interested me and taken up so much 
of my time as that of the fountain of 
Miriam. After I had made my pilgrim- 
age here to Tiberias, to die in the ma- 
ternal bosom of my home and to be 
buried in sacred ground, one of my first 
questions was, Where is the fountain 
of Miriam ? No one knew, or feigned 
something not to appear ignorant.* 
* Frankl (Nach Jerusalem, 11. 355) was shown a 



THE LOCALITY. 4I 

But as the Jerusalem Talmud says, that 
in order to find it, you must stand in 
the middle door of the old synagogue 
of Serugnin"^ and look straight forward. 
I asked the Jews and the Nazarenes 
and the Ishmaelites, where is Serugnin ? 
but they all replied that they had never 
heard of a place of that name. Then I 
determined to give myself no rest until 
I had found the mysterious fountain, 
and there is no favorable point of view 
on the hills or in the valley at which I 
have not stood long and imploringly 
looked up to heaven and out upon the 

large red rock between Tiberias and the Baths, 
lying about ten paces from the sea, as the stone 
which Moses smote with his staff. 

*Schwarz, Tebuoth ha-arez (Jerusalem 5605, 
8) 93^. Compare his Heiliges Land (1852), p. 

r34. 

4^ 



42 A DAY IN CAPERNAUM, 

sea, in search of the desired locality. I 
knew all the marks that distinguish it — 
a small mass of rock, round like a bee- 
hive, and full of holes like a sieve.* 
But a long time elapsed, until at last I 
saw really before me the dream, and 
riddle and mystery of my long life. 
It was at the first Elul of last year, 
when the water, owing to a drought of 
some months' duration, was very low. 
See,'* said he, pointing to the place at 
the edge of the hill where he had been 
sitting, "the rock itself is invisible at 
present, owing to the high water, but 
there, a little this side of the current of 
the Jordan, where the water forms a 
little eddy, and occasionally throws up 

* Schabbath, 35^. Comp. Schottgen, Horae, at 
I Cor. X. 4. 



THE LOCALITY. 43 

bladders, there lies the fountain of 
Miriam. Peace be with you ! " 

It may be here remarked that this 
fountain of Miriam is not known to 
Bible - readers because it is nothing 
more than an unfounded legend. We 
read in the Bible that when Miriam 
died in Kadesh Barnea,* the people be- 
gan to complain of the want of water, 
and that upon their wanderings through 
the desert they were supplied with water 
miraculously from rocks. Legendary 
fiction has drawn the conclusion that, 
on the ground of the meritorious ser- 
vices of Miriam, the Israelites were ac- 
companied during their forty years' wan- 
dering over hill and valley with a rock 
furnishing water, which rolled itself 
* Numb. XX. Comp. Ps. Ixxviii. 15. 



44 A DAY IN CAPERNAUM. 

along by the side of the hosts, and 
stopped wherever they encamped. To 
this fountain of Miriam, which after 
Miriam's death disappeared for a time 
from the view of the people, and then, 
again was restored, is applied what we 
read in Numb. xxi. 1 7, " Then Israel sang 
this song, Spring up, O well ; sing ye 
unto it/** At the death of Moses this 
fountain disappeared. God concealed it 
in the sea of Tiberias, but yet so that he 
who looks northward towards this sea 
from the mountain Jeschimon, the high- 
est peak of the land of Moab, will yet 
recognize it in the form of a little sieve.f 

* See particularly the Targum of Jonathan on 
this passage. 

f The Babylonish Talmud is mistaken in sup- 
posing this mountain was Carmel. 



THE LOCALITY. 45 

This legend is ancient and widely ex- 
tended. It is so deeply rooted in the 
popular mind, that remarkable stories 
are still told and believed of its miracu- 
lous ability to transport itself from one 
place to another. 

"But/' said I to this simple-hearted 
old man, "why do you still sit here, en- 
veloped in the Tallith, and gaze with 
such a constrained look after this foun- 
tain, which you believe to have discov- 
ered ? *' " Have you ever been in Mei- 
ron ? '' he asked. " Yes,'' I replied, " and 
we there stood at the grave of Rabbi 
Simeon bar Jochai.'' * " Well, then, you 
know," he continued, "that there is a 
Kabbala (tradition) extant, that here 
where the redemption from Egypt re- 
* Robinson, Palestine, 3, 598. 



46 A DAY IN CAPERNAUM. 

ceived its consummation, the future re-* 
demption will have its beginning/* * 
" Do you know/' I inquired, " that the 
fountain of Miriam is also mentioned in 
the sacred writings of the Christians ? '' 
"You are mistaken,'' he exclaimed; 
" the Sea of Genesaret is mentioned in 
the gospel, but not the fountain of 
Miriam." "But the Aposde Paul," I 
rejoined, " who sat at the feet of Gama- 
liel, the grandson of Hillel, says in his 
first epistle to the Corinthian Chris- 
tians,f ' Our fathers, who were under 
the cloud and passed through the sea, 
did all drink the same spiritual drink, for 
they drank of that spiritual rock which 

* Jalkut Chadasch, 142^, No. 43. Comp. my 
Comment, on Isaiah, p. 157. 
1 1 Cor. X. 1--4. 



THE LOCALITY. 47 

followed them/ — but he adds, — 'and 
that rock — this fountain of Miriam — 
was Christ/ It was he of whom Isaiah 
spoke, * Behold I lay in Zion a corner- 
stone,* a tried stone, a precious corner- 
stone/ But now we must part. You 
are seeking the traces of the Mosaic 
redemption, and we are following the 
tracks of the Messianic redemption, 
which really took its rise at this sea." 

After we had separated we continue 
to follow the road on the inner side of 
the valley, which leads to the foot of the 
chain of hills, and come to where it again 
extends near the sea and cuts off the 
valley. We have now reached an old 
dilapidated station-house, built upon a 
foundation of basaltic tufa, whence lead- 

*Is. xxviii. 1 6. 



48 A DAY IN CAPERNAUM. 

ing up the hill the Damascus road 
branches off. It is the Khan Minije. 
Proceeding a little beyond it, and hav- 
ing arrived at Ain at Tin, the Fountain 
of Figs, so called from a large, old fig- 
tree standing there, we find the soil cov- 
ered with such a beautiful and inviting 
carpet of green that we cannot resist 
the disposition to stop awhile and re- 
fresh ourselves with breathing the sea- 
air, here laden with the aromatic fra- 
grance of this lovely pasture - land. 
Southwardly from the Khan there are 
ruins which extend to the banks of the 
sea. Was this perhaps the locality of 
Capernaum ? Robinson and many who 
follow him are of this opinion, Sepp 
thinks that he has established it incon- 
testably, in discerning in the word Mi- 



THE LOCALITY. 49 

nije an analogy with Minim, the name 
of heretics, which was given to Chris- 
tians, and verily Capernaum could be 
designated above other localities as the 
place of Minim. But this name is not 
traditional, and that of Minije first ap- 
pears in the year 1189 in an Arabic 
biography of Saladin."^ The location 
of Capernaum in the vicinity of the 
Khan Minije is to be rejected for this 
reason besides, because, according to 
the oldest and most credible traditioo, 
the whole western shore of the sea of 
Genesaret belonged to the tribe of 
Naphtali,f but Capernaum, according 

*The designation of the Khan with Minije, 
properly Minge, is pure Arabic and frequent as 
the name of places, particularly in Egypt. The 
word means residence, resting-place, haralet, 

f See Caphtor wa-Pherach, c. 7, 
5 D 



50 A DAY IN CAPERNAUM. 

to Matt iv. 13, lay on the borders of 
Zebulon and Naphtali, and hence far- 
ther northward, there where, at the 
northern end of the sea, the territory of 
Zebulon borders upon that of Naphtali. 
At any rate, this was the location of an 
ancient place. 

Persons dwelling in the vicinity of 
the Fountain of Figs once betook them- 
selves to Sepphoris, which occupied an 
inland position in a southwesterly direc- 
tion, for the purpose of paying a con- 
gratulatory visit to a man high in office. 
It is related that Rabbi Simeon ben- 
Chalefta, whom we have already seen 
on the heights of Arbel, was surrounded 
at the city gate of Sepphoris by a crowd 
of rude children who would not allow 
him to move from the spot, until he had 



THE LOCALITY. $1 

danced before them. One of our com- 
panions exclaimed : " The fig-tree there 
reminds me of the story of Hadrian and 
the man of one hundred years old. The 
emperor was once travelling in the 
vicinity of Tiberias, and called to an old 
man who was planting young fig-trees, 
* Old man ! such work is usually done in 
the morning and not in the evening of 
life.' * I was industrious in my youth/ 
he replied, ' and will also be in my old 
age; the result is left to God/ 'Do 
you then believe,' asked the emperor, 
' that you will yet enjoy the fruits of this 
tree?' * Perhaps/ he replied, 'if God 
vouchsafes it ; if not, then I am doing 
for my posterity the same which my an- 
cestors did for me.' Then the emperor 
exclaimed, * If you survive that, I conjure 



52 A DAY IN CAPERNAUM. 

you to let me know it.' After the lapse 
of some years, the old man appeared at 
the imperial palace with a basket of figs. 
Hadrian invited him to take a seat upon 
a golden chair and ordered his basket 
to be filled with gold pieces, and said to 
the astonished servants, ' He honors his 
maker, and should I not honor him ? ' 
But when another inhabitant of this 
beautiful country, instigated by his wife, 
also took to the emperor a basket of 
precious figs, in hope of a similar im- 
perial compensation, Hadrian ordered 
the presumptuous man to stand at the 
gate of the palace, and every person 
going in or out should cast one of 
his figs in his face. When he had re- 
turned home, his avaricious and disap- 
pointed wife did not even sympathize 



THE LOCALITY. 53 

with him, but said to him sneeringly, 
' Go, and tell your mother how fortunate 
you were, that it was only figs and not 
Paradise apples, and above all ripe figs, 
for if they had not been so, what a face 
you would have brought home/ " * 

But, brother, we are not here to lis- 
ten to pretty stories and to behold beau- 
tiful landscapes. We are here to seek 
out the city of Jesus — the city of 
the Messias — the city by the sea, near 
the borders of the heathen, where the 
word of Isaiah was fulfilled, " The peo- 
ple that walked in darkness have seen 
a great light; they that dwell in the 

*Wajikra rabba, c. 25. Midrasch Koheleth, 
2, 20. Fiirstenthars Rabbinische Anthologie, 
No. 429. 
5* 



54 A DAY IN CAPERNAUM. 

land of the shadow of death, upon them 
hath the light shined/' (Is. ix. 2.) 

There is no road along the sea by 
which we could proceed further — noth- 
ing but an ancient aqueduct of doubtful 
intention, a mere conduit cut in the 
stone, runs along the shore. Then we 
pursue our way over the rocky projec- 
tion of the hill, which northward cuts the 
vale of Genesaret. The blue sea gen- 
tly undulates on our right, and in the 
distance before us Hermon stretches 
his gray summit into the azure sky. 
The sublime, enchanting view transports 
us into a devotional silence. When 
after a quarter of an hour we de- 
scended into the mill seats of Tabigha,* 

* Thus Robinson and others write it, but the 
proper name is Tabika, from tabaka, to cover. 
This is the word for a spring which covers a 
wide space with its mass of water. 



THE LOCALITY. 55 

with Its copious springs of water, our 
friend broke the silence and said, " Are 
you so peevish that you do not want to 
hear any more pleasant stories ? *' " Al- 
ways,'' was the answer, " but they must 
relate to Capernaum/' He then con- 
tinued : " What my Jewish authorities 
say of Capernaum is not creditable or 
cheering. Capernaum passes for a 
principal residence of the minim, (hete- 
rodox, i. e. Jewish Christians,) and what 
the Jews say of them is not better than 
what the heathen fabled of the ancient 
Christians. One story is at least tragi- 
comical. Chanina, the nephew of Rab- 
bi Joshua — as the tale goes — once 
went to Capernaum, where the people 
under false pretences enticed him to 



$6 A DAY IN CAPERNAUM. 

ride upon an ass in the city on a Sab- 
bath day. When he had come to him- 
self, he fled for refuge to Rabbi Joshua, 
his father's brother, who anointed him 
with a salve and thus healed him from 
his bewitchment, but said to him : * Since 
the ass of those ungodly people has be- 
fooled you, you can no longer dwell in 
the Holy Land/ He wandered to 
Babylon and died there in peace.* The 
* ass of the ungodly ' which neighed at 
him was the foolish preaching concern- 
ing the Crucified." 

The nearness of our destination has- 
tened our steps. Another hour and we 
shall find ourselves on the extensive 
ruins of Tell Hum, and shall be thread- 

* Mishrad Koheleth, i, 8. ^ 



THE tOCALITY. 5/ 

ing our way through grass and bushes 
to the astounding and colossal remains 
of ancient Capernaum.* There is no 
collection of ruins near the Sea of Gen- 
esaret which can be compared with 
these in magnitude and extent, and in 
traces of departed glory. Here, yes 
here, we cry as with one voice, we will 
remain and not depart therefrom until 
these ruins have risen again before our 
spirit and until we have beheld him, who 
once lived here, who walked between 
these houses, and who in this synagogue 
revealed himself as the founder of a new 
era in his wisdom and wonder-working 
power. 

*Mischrad Koheleth, i, 8. 



MORNING. 



59 




II. 

MORNING. 

NOW, father, we are here," said 
a little girl of about twelve 
years of age, who led an old man by 
the hand ; and as they had proceeded a 
few steps farther, she exclaimed : " How 
fortunate we are that the bench before 
the door is still unoccupied ! '' Whilst 
she said this, she hastened towards the 
bench and drew her father after her. 
When they had reached it, she pressed 
the blind man down upon the seat, and 

6 6i 



62 A DAY IN CAPERNAUM. 

added, "Thank God! who has helped 
us thus far/' 

" But," said he, " are you sure this is 
his house ? '' 

" I ought to know it, I think,'' she re- 
pHed, "for here I have often pressed 
through the crowd to hear his charming 
words." 

" But," continued he, " is he probably 
at home and not upon a journey ? " 

" We must hope," said she, " that we 
have heard a true report ; but stay here, 
I will look around and listen." 

It was the time of the transition of the 
middle night-watch into the third ; the 
starry heaven sparkled in the full bril- 
liancy of its jewel-bespangled diadem. 
The little girl took her position at a 
slight distance from the house, feebly 



MORNING. 63 

illuminated by the light of the stars, and 
fixed her earnest gaze upon it, espe- 
cially upon a chamber under the roof, 
in which there was still burning a lamp 
which gave forth a weak, flickering 
flame. As a shadowy form became 
visible at the open window, she uttered 
a cry, sunk upon her knees, and bowed 
her head to the ground. In this pray- 
ing posture she remained so long until 
the call of her father, " Peninna ! Penin- 
na ! why do you leave me alone ? '' 
aroused her. 

In the mean time a crowd was gath- 
ering around the house. From differ- 
ent directions the dull sound of steps 
and voices was heard through the still- 
ness of the night. Here came a man 
carrying a child upon his back, whose 



64 A DAY IN CAPERNAUM. 

suffering head hung forwards over his 
shoulder; there came two, bearing a 
third upon a hammock, and whilst, be- 
fore ascending the slight elevation, they 
let down the sick man to the ground, 
that they might rest a little, you could 
hear his pitiable moanings, drawn out 
by the hardness of his bed. From the 
east side of the sea, where the highway 
leading from Damascus to the coast of 
the Mediterranean borders on the Sea 
of Genesaret, trotted a camel guided 
by an older and a younger man, which 
conveyed upon a side-saddle a sick wo- 
man bent with suffering and covered 
with thick wrappers of cloth. Led or 
carried, came more and more sick, so 
that the place before the house became 
a great Lazaretto, in which the groans 



MORNING. 65 

of the suffering and the half subdued 
and partly coarse language of their at- 
tendants combined to create a dull, con- 
fused noise. It was necessary for Pen- 
inna to employ every caution and all the 
moral force she could muster to main- 
tain the position she had first assumed 
with her father. All tried, not without 
threats and pushes, to plant themselves 
as near the door as possible. But as 
often as there were discernible signs 
of motion within the house, the crowd 
looked towards it with anxious expec- 
tation, and then the confusion relapsed 
into motionless silence. 

The shadow at the window, which 
Peninna saw, was not His. As the 
morning gray of the eastern heavens 

began to assume variegated colors, a 
6* E 



66 A DAY IN CAPERNAUM. 

man was seen approaching from the 
hillside of the city through its narrow 
streets. His countenance was as pale 
as the Sudar ^ which concealed his brow 
and chin. The city watchman, when he 
saw him, stepped reverently to one side 
and trembled in every limb, when with 
a gentle salutation, the charming but 
deeply earnest glance of his marvellous 
eyes struck him. After he stood for a 
while as it were bound fast, he followed 
him at a distance with as light a step as 
possible. He whom he followed, has- 
tened or rather floated along with a 

*The covering of the head. The Lord is 
usually represented bareheaded, but to go bare- 
headed was regarded not only as injurious but un- 
becoming. See Talmud. Real-Lexicon Pachad 
Jizchakj article Gilu Rosh. 



MORNING. 67 

tread unheard. He was dressed sim- 
ply, rather poorly than otherwise, but 
the majesty of his step, the loftiness 
of his bearing, and the fanner in which 
he gathered the folds of the tallith* 
around him, betrayed the grace and dig- 
nity of a king. As he turned the cor- 
ner, and the view of so many sufferers 
burst upon his sight, he stepped back 
for a moment, but directing his eyes 
upwards, which radiated and absorbed 

* Tallith now means the prayer-cloth with 
which the head is covered during prayer, but in 
its original meaning it is the upper garment. The 
shirt {hallig) of the teacher, according to Bathra 
(57^), covered the whole body, and was visible 
under the tallith only a hand's-breadth. This 
tallith, with the shirt-like covering of the body, 
constituted the bosom in which John was per- 
mitted to recline his head. John xiii. 23. 



68 A DAY IN CAPERNAUM. 

celestial light, he immediately regained 
his composure and resumed his steps 
forward. The crowd, having observed 
him, instantly withdrew their attention 
from the house and fixed it upon him, 
and all arms were extended towards 
him in an imploring attitude. " Blessed 
be he who cometh in the name of the 
Lord ! '' exclaimed an old man on the 
edge of the crowd. He had himself 
experienced the power of the wonder- 
working physician, and was now untir- 
ingly engaged in bearing along the 
sick. More than fifty voices at once 
hailed the approaching deliverer with 
loud and various salutations, accom- 
panied with the most impassioned, im- 
ploring gestures. Here one voice ex- 
claimed : rabbenu (O thou our rabbi) ; 



MORNING. 



69 



there, another, marana (our Lord) ; or 
schelicha dischmaja (ambassador of 
Heaven) ; or mikwe Israel (hope of Is- 
rael) ; and the sick woman on the camel, 
whom her father and brother had 
brought from Bethsaida Julias, stretched 
out her arm from her white wrappings 
towards him, and her wild, piercing 
scream, malca mechica (O King Mes- 
sias), rang like a spirit-cry through the 
confused sound of voices. The impres- 
sion upon him was manifestly annoying. 
A wave of the hand, and the deep red 
blush that suffused his pale face, re- 
buked this turmoil and hushed it into 
solemn silence. The sick who could 
move without assistance had in the 
mean time ranged themselves in rows 
in kneeling posture, but each one de- 



70 A DAY IN CAPERNAUM. 

Siring to be as near as possible to Him ; 
the passage through which he walked 
was very narrow. He proceeded slowly, 
and his whole appearance betokened 
the most profound interest. Right and 
left with greedy haste they grasped the 
ends of his taUith — they kissed it — 
they bedewed it with tears, and drew it 
as near as possible to the suffering part 
of their bodies ; but notwithstanding 
this pressure and crowding, they did not 
rudely touch his person. He stood 
amid this excited multitude, clothed 
with a majesty which commanded vene- 
ration, and which, while it did not repel 
the approach of the suffering, yet did 
not allow any unbecoming familiarity. 
When his hands, stretched out on both 
sides, could not reach a sufferer, he 



MORNING. 71 

leaned over, laid his hand upon him, 
and addressed a few words to him in a 
low tone. The nearer he approached 
the house, the more boisterous became 
the excitement, especially among those 
behind him. The joy of those into 
whose limbs new life had been infused, 
and who felt that not only their bodies 
but their souls had been healed, broke 
forth into exclamations of gratitude and 
praise. When one voice cried out in 
the words of the psalm, " Blessed be the 
Lord, the God of Israel, who alone 
doeth wonders," the whole crowd re- 
sponded like a congregation assembled 
in the house of God, " Blessed be the 
name of his kingdom forever and ever.'' 
The nearer he came, the more fever- 
ish became the anxiety of Peninna. Her 



72 A DAY IN CAPERNAUM. 

form rose higher and -higher, and she 
followed every one of his motions with 
absorbing interest ; and when the eyes 
of the Lord fell upon the child, which 
like a motionless and beautiful statue 
ornamented the entrance to the house, 
it was then as if the tints of the morn- 
ing rose upon her pale face, and in a 
voice of silver purity she intoned : " The 
Lord killeth and maketh alive; he 
bringeth down to the grave and bring- 
eth up. The Lord maketh poor and 
maketh rich ; he bringeth low and lifteth 
up/' She sang at first with trembling 
voice, but stronger and bolder when she 
observed no signs of disapprobation in 
his features. 

" Will he come soon ? '' asked the old 
man, whose left hand earnestly grasped 
the right hand of his daughter. 



MORNING. 73 

"We must wait/' she replied; "but a 
look that he cast upon me promises 
well." 

" Blessed be thou, my daughter ! '' he 
exclaimed. "Thou hast the name of 
Peninna and the heart of Hannah. Thy 
song was to me as the voice of a dove 
which heralds the approach of spring.'' 

It really seemed as though the blind 
were to be the last healed. 

Turning towards the maiden, he 
asked : " What is thy desire, Peninna ? " 

" Lord, that my father may see thee 
and thy works," was her reply. 

Then he laid his hand upon the head 
of the old man, and inclining towards 
him, said: "The Lord killeth and maketh 
alive. Be it unto thee according to the 
confession of thy child." 



74 A DAY IN CAPERNAUM. 

All this was but the occurrence of a 
few moments, and the hands of the 
father and daughter, stretched out in 
grateful acknowledgment, no longer 
reached him who had vanished through 
the open door of the house. 

Peter was behind the door, in part a 
witness of this early morning activity 
of his Lord, but the words " O heavenly 
guest of sinful men,'' with which he 
saluted him, were scarcely heard by him 
who was hastening up to his chamber. 
Arrived there, he betook himself to a 
divan against the wall and sunk down 
as if exhausted from bearing the burden 
of the sicknesses and sorrows he had 
removed from the numerous sufferers. 

The sun was already rising in his 
glory; the birds were warbling in the 



MORNING. 75 

apple- and walnut-trees which sur- 
rounded the house which Jesus had en- 
tered the evening before. A thrush 
was singing its morning hymn from the 
towers of the castle, and at the springs 
below where the two streets met, the 
house-maids were talking of the miracu- 
lous cures which had been made during 
the past night in the open place before 
the house. The whole vicinity was 
alive this morning earlier than usual. 
The rejoicings of the healed and of their 
companions had disturbed many a one 
in his morning dreams and excited their 
curiosity. Many of the strangers had 
desired and received accommodations 
with their relatives and friends, and the 
keepers of the Pundiks (taverns) were 
glad to take in these early but not un- 



^6 A DAY IN CAPERNAUM. 

welcome guests. But in the house on 
the hill there was yet complete silence* 
The occupants, though a long time 
awake, moved about gently, for they 
knew that the Master had watched with- 
out all night in solitude, and upon his 
return had found much and difficult 
work to perform. But upon the plat- 
form of the house there was Peter, at 
some distance from the balustrade, that 
he might not be observed by any one 
from the street already alive with peo- 
ple. It was a beautiful, calm morning. 
Gently, as a sleeping infant, the sea re- 
posed in the lap of the surrounding 
hills,* whose summits on the other side 
were gilded with the rays of the rising 
sun. The water rose and sunk like the 
* Lynch, Report. 



MORNING. ^^ 

bosom of one softly breathing, and only 
occasionally was its surface agitated by 
a fish leaping out of the water, whilst 
far above, the ospray floated in the air 
to watch its prey, and dashing down with 
lightning velocity to seize it. At some 
distance from the shore, a flock of 
wild ducks ploughed their way silently 
through the glistening water, and here 
and there boats and fishermen's barks 
appeared like white points, which only 
deepened the impression of the wide 
extended expanse of the sea. Peter 
could appreciate this stir and motion in 
the midst of the reigning silence. He, 
the energetic and experienced fisher- 
man, was thoroughly familiar with all 
the peculiarities of the lake. But now 
he recognized in it a symbol of the great 



78 A DAY IN CAPERNAUM. 

sea of men, in which, as the sun of right- 
eousness had risen upon it, he was here- 
after to cast his net. Then with a sigh 
towards heaven, he directed his eyes 
southward to the vicinity of the Dead 
Sea, where, within the territory of the 
Moabites and subsequently of the Gad- 
ites, lay the frightful, precipitous, and 
rock-bound Machaerus,* in which the 
great and dearly-beloved captive was 
held prisoner. To him he owed the first 
dawning of heavenly light and knowl- 
edge that burst upon his mind, and then 
he would fix a protracted gaze upon 
Bethsaida, his birthplace, from whence, 
with his brother, he had moved to Ca- 
pernaum in the house of his mother-in- 

* The fortress in which John the Baptist was 
imprisoned by Herod. 



MORNING. 79 

law. In spirit he saluted his parents 
and friends there, wishing that they 
also would believe in the Saviour of 
Israel, whom he, however unworthy, was 
honored with the distinguished privi- 
lege of entertaining. As he transiently 
looked over the balustrade, he observed 
that already a number of persons had 
gathered in the vicinity of the house, to 
take advantage of the first opportunity 
to hear the great Teacher, but also that 
a scribe was engaged in a violent con- 
troversy with them. ''Why do you 
seek,'' he said, or rather screamed, " in- 
struction and healing from this idiot 
and not from those to whom you are 
directed, our rabbis and priests ? Be ye 
warned ; he heals the body that he may 
poison the soul. He is a sched (demon) 



80 A DAY IN CAPERNAUM. 

in human form, and will draw you 
with him into perdition from which he 
has come forth/' With horror and in- 
dignation Peter heard this. It required 
a great effort not to hurl back the insult 
in the severest language, and he silently 
descended into the chamber where his 
family had already assembled for the 
morning meal and awaited him. 

When he had entered into the family- 
room he immediately inquired, " Has 
he not shown himself yet ? '' and when 
they answered nay, he turned to his 
mother-in-law and said, "Go up, my 
dear, knock gently at the door, and in- 
sist upon his coming down, for after 
such exertions he will need some bodily 
refreshment for the day's work before 
him." 



MORNING. 83 

lem/' During this conversation the 
meal was ended. He rose, and going 
to the ground floor, opened the door 
of the house, and thus addressed a con- 
siderable number of persons who had 
already assembled there : " If ye would 
hear the word of life, listen to what Isaiah 
says, Ho, every one that thirsteth, come 
ye to the waters, and ye that have no 
money, come, buy and eat; come and 
buy wine and milk without money and 
without price/' 

The house consisted of a ground floor 
and a story above it. When a person 
entered through the narrow doorway, 
he came into a paved hall. A stairs to 
the right of the entrance led to the 
chamber of the exalted guest, and a 
stairs to the left led to the family-room. 



84 A DAY IN CAPERNAUM. 

Two less conspicuous stairs in the back 
part of the room conducted to the other 
chambers, all of which were arranged 
around the paved hall. 

When Jesus had invited those assem- 
bled at the door to draw nearer, he re- 
tired before -the pressing crowd into the 
hall, and there at the cistern in the mid- 
dle of it, he took his stand and preached 
to them, now gathered in a close circle 
around him, the word of God concern- 
ing the predicted but now present sal- 
vation. The crowd continually in- 
creased until the hall and the space out- 
side were filled. Then came four men 
bearing a man entirely lame upon a lit- 
ter, which was fastened to ropes wound 
round their shoulders. It was evident 
that they had come a considerable dis- 



MORNING. 85 

tance and had borne the whole burden 
of the morning heat. They came too 
late to secure entrance to Jesus. To 
press through a closely packed mass of 
people was utterly impossible. Then 
they went around the house and hap- 
pily found behind It a ladder leaning 
against it, which was just high enough to 
reach to the railing around it, and thus 
to enable them to mount the flat roof. 
After the sick man had given his con- 
sent to be lifted up, one of the men first 
ascended. Then the patient was bound 
fast to the mattress with the ropes. A 
second one mounted the ladder to hand 
to the one already up the two ends of 
the rope, and then ascended himself. 
Then the two drew up the sick man, 
whilst the other two still below sup- 



86 A DAY IN CAPERNAUM. 

ported the burden as far as their own 
height reached, and gave it the proper 
direction. When it had been drawn up, 
they also leaped upon the roof. After 
they had all safely secured this position, 
one of them descended the stairs which 
led from the roof to the back chamber, 
and from this place he heard the voice 
of Jesus. In perfect silence the crowd 
stood around him, while his richly-toned 
voice filled the whole apartment. Its 
clear, silver ring fastened the profound 
attention of every one, for he poured 
out his whole soul in its tones, whilst his 
countenance and whole demeanor im- 
parted additional vigor to the power of 
his words. The man who had de- 
scended the stairs listened and looked, 
and forgot himself in the profound in- 



MORNING. 87 

terest which the speaking of Jesus 
awakened in him. The sick man above 
impatiently asked, " What is to become 
of me ? '' When the three others had 
beckoned their companion to return, 
they all agreed that it would be impos- 
sible to carry the sick man down the 
narrow stairway. "There is no other 
way/' said they, " than to tear off the 
roof and let him down through the 
aperture ; but that would be taking an 
improper liberty with another man's 
property, and besides it is a neck-break- 
ing adventure.'' "Let me down," ex- 
claimed the sick man, " I will be satis- 
fied if I can only be brought to lie at his 
feet, living or dead, and we will richly 
compensate the owner of the house for 
all the damage we do." 



88 A DAY IN CAPERNAUM. 

In the middle of the floor there was a 
square piece of beautiful mosaic work, 
which formed an ornamental figure in 
the flattest part of the roof. This square 
not only served to adorn the roof, but 
also to protect the house. During the 
rainy winter season it was kept se- 
curely closed by means of mortar, and 
it was now in that condition, although 
the winter rains were already past 
and the spring had set in with the 
season of Easter, especially in this re- 
gion near the sea. The owner had not 
yet had time or disposition to open this 
orifice above, through which his house 
in summer time was supplied with light 
and air. When the bearers of the sick 
man had removed the tiles, it was dis- 
covered that they rested upon a plank 



MORNING. 89 

furnished with a ring, which could be 
lifted up like a trap-door. The rafters 
of the roof were just wide enough apart 
to let down the sick man upon the lit- 
ter between them. The square aper- 
ture was purposely placed just above 
the cistern in the room below, and it 
was possible to let the sick man down 
in such a way that he would lie upon 
the cover of the cistern and also just 
before the speaker when he should turn 
round. 

The poor sufferer submitted to the 
counsel of his friends, for they were 
exceedingly anxious to afford him every 
possible aid in procuring relief, and 
they as well as he were certain that 
among all men only one could give it. 
This ONE was Jesus of Nazareth, in 



90 A DAY IN CAPERNAUM. 

whom, as thousands at that time be- 
lieved, the God of salvation himself had 
visited his people.^ These four men 
were the friends and neighbors of the 
patient. They had done all in their 
power to mitigate his sufferings by their 
sympathy and aid. He belonged to that 
comparatively small class of men whose 
work and pleasure above all other 
things are to serve God. He would 
have cheerfully endured his sorrows, if 
(we know not on what ground) he had 
not therein discerned a merited judg- 
ment of God. As the thought that God 
had rejected him would have changed 
the full enjoyment of outward pros- 
perity into insufferable distress, so this 
same idea made his terrible suffering, 
which chained him like a living corpse 



MORNING. 91 

nearly incapable of motion to his bed 
of torture, a source of still deeper an- 
guish. He had become entirely inca- 
pable of cherishing any hope, and he 
had no thought that Jesus would heal 
either his spirit or his body. But he 
knew that he was the only one who 
could help him ; and although he re- 
garded himself entirely unworthy of 
help, yet he was determined, even if it 
cost him his life, to hear the word of 
God from the lips of God's ambassador. 
The attempt to let down the sick man 
would have been impracticable if the 
men had not observed the remains of a 
tent upon the roof at the place where 
the wealthier families usually erected a 
sort of leaf-like chamber — the so-called 
Alija. They unwound the ropes of the 



92 A DAY IN CAPERNAUM. 

tent, and according to their calculation 
they were long enough if united with 
the bearing-straps of the litter, and were^ 
tied to its handles to render it possible 
to let the sick man safely down. But 
still they were scarcely long enough, 
and the men were obliged gradually to 
bend themselves down very low, and at 
last even to lie prostrate and to stretch 
out their arms to their utmost length. 
The noise occasioned by this tedious 
' operation upon the roof had already at- 
tracted the attention of the crowd in the 
room below. But the overwhelming 
and fascinating power of the speaker 
was so great that there was no disturb- 
ance of the meeting. But when the litter 
appeared over the heads of the congre- 
gation, they were struck with amaze- 



MORNING. 93 

ment which presently gave utterance to 
the exclamation, " Rabbi, rabbi ! a sick 
man is coming down/' " Behold their 
faith/' said Jesus, as he looked upward. 
" Help them support the sick man, that 
he fall not." Upon this the men who 
were standing near Jesus by the cistern 
extended their arms, took hold of the 
litter, and, as the ropes were not long 
enough to let it down to the floor, they 
untied them, and with their own hands 
set the litter, with the poor man 
stretched out upon it, before the feet 
of Jesus. The excitement which this 
interruption occasioned in the people 
was very great, for when Jesus had 
heretofore healed the sick, it was done 
silently and privately, and for the most 
part when very few besides the sick 



94 A DAY IN CAPERNAUM. 

person were present. For he pur- 
posely avoided kindling the unholy fire 
of popul^ar enthusiasm, and thus stirring 
up the enmity of Pharisaism so long 
glimmering in secret. It was not his 
main design to be glorified as a miracu- 
lous physician, but rather to be believed 
in as a redeemer, and he was ready with 
cheerfulness to endure all the sufferings 
which his Father had ordained him to 
undergo, without presumptuously draw- 
ing them upon himself. But now an 
incurably sick man was all of a sudden 
laid before him in the presence of 
many witnesses, and thus a task im- 
posed upon him, the performance of 
which was expected by the densely 
packed crowd around him with the 
most earnest solicitude. Will he per- 



MORNING. 95 

form It, and how will he do It ? That 
was the question which betrayed itself 
upon every countenance present. 

" Man, what is your desire ? '' in 
rather a severe tone he asked the 
stranger who had interrupted him in 
his discourse, and who had not yet by 
any word or prayer appealed to Christ. 
The sick man was silent, but his breast 
rose and fell convulsively; his whole 
body trembled, and his eyes, which were 
lifted up to Jesus in a fixed gaze, poured 
forth streams of tears amid the most 
violent sobs. He, to whom those who 
stood immediately around him bore 
witness that he discerned the inmost 
thoughts of men, recognized in this 
man one to whom bodily health was 
not the greatest of all ble'ssings: his 



g6 A DAY IN CAPERNAUM. 

groaning was self-condemnation, his 
trembling was fear in the presence of 
the Holy One, and his weeping was 
prayer for pardon. Hence the Lord 
was gratified that this time he could 
grasp the evil by the roots and begin 
the restoration from within ; his heart 
was moved; his countenance bright- 
ened, his voice softened, and with an 
expression in which the most exalted 
self- consciousness, sympathetic conde- 
scension, and unconditioned assurance 
harmoniously blended, he said, ''Son, 
be of good cheer ; thy sins are forgiven 
thee.'' These words operated upon the 
sick man as when the wind disperses 
the clouds and brings to view the azure 
of the skies, or as when a shower laden 
with heavenly energies refreshes the 



MORNING. 97 

almost withered plants upon the parched 
earth. The consciousness of grace re- 
ceived overcame him, the peace of God 
penetrated him, the features of his face 
seemed transfigured, his eyes looked up 
gratefully to the Comforter, and mir- 
rored in their tears the joy of his glad- 
dened heart as the sun glistens in the 
pearly drops of the dew. But whilst 
those consoling words imparted life to 
the sick man, they concealed, for him 
who spoke them, the germ of death. 

The liturgy of the law recognized a 
priestly declaration of ecclesiastical or 
ceremonial purgation, as, for instance, 
in the case of a leper, but not a priestly 
declaration of the pardon of sin. In 
general, Judaism knows no act of hu- 
man absolution. Isaiah (chap. vi. 7) is 
9 Q 



98 A DAY IN CAPERNAUM. 

absolved by a seraph, and Joshua the 
high-priest {Zech. iii. 4,) by an angel of 
God, but in both these cases it was a 
divine commission which the heavenly 
spirits executed. For the pardon of sin 
is an exclusive prerogative of God, and 
when any creature declares another free 
from guilt, it is not done through his 
own power, but only through the dele- 
gated authority and power of God. It 
is not surprising then, that the words 
of Jesus to the paralytic occasioned the 
most profound astonishment. Their ef- 
fect upon others of those present was, 
however, somewhat different. Behind 
the outer rows of people there sat upon 
benches fastened into the lower wall 
certain Tannaim (scribes), who, roused 
to the greatest excitement by his words, 



MORNING. 99 

moved to and fro uneasily upon their 
seats, shook their heads, and gestured 
with their hands. Jesus understood 
their angry looks and demeanor. The 
charge which they therein meant to con- 
vey against him was nothing less than 
blasphemy. 

It was a momentous turning-point in 
the life of Jesus, for the verdict of blas- 
phemy which these scribes uttered 
against him in their hearts was the be- 
ginning of the trial which a few years 
later terminated in his ignominious exe- 
cution in Jerusalem. Those men in the 
background of the hall thought they 
could observe all these proceedings 
secretly ; but how disagreeably were 
they undeceived when they discovered 
that they were the objects of observa- 



lOO A DAY IN CAPERNAUM. 

tion, and that his all-penetrating eye 
discerned even the thoughts of their 
hearts. They were indignant at the 
presumption of that man who set him- 
self up as a teacher, who had not 
studied in a Beth ha-Midrasch (house of 
learning), and could not show a horach 
(license to teach), and now they were 
obliged to submit to be put to shame 
by him before all the people when he 
directed his eyes upon them, whose 
piercing glance penetrated their inmost 
soul and startled them with alarm, and 
asked them, " Why think ye so evil in 
your hearts ? " 

He was well persuaded that he could 
not make a favorable impression upon 
those who regarded him as a layman 
puffed up with the ambition of becom- 



MORNING. lOI 

ing great — who, contrary to law, set 
himself up as a public teacher, and ex- 
cited the populace against their regularly 
authorized instructors. He knew well 
that they extracted only poison from 
his words, that they exerted all their 
power to injure his influence, and that 
they would not rise above the scanda- 
lous names applied to his person and 
his external work, because they dili- 
gently closed their understandings to 
the comprehension of his internal and 
divine character. But he did not fear 
them. He accepted the challenge which 
they threw down to him, for he suddenly 
drew them into the field of combat and 
attacked those openly who had secretly 
forged arms against him. " For whether 
is easier to say/' he asked, "Thy sins 



102 A DAY IN CAPERNAUM. 

be forgiven thee, or to say, Arise and 
walk " ? As they judged according to 
what they heard and saw, the former 
(although they regarded it as blasphe- 
mous) must have appeared easier to 
them than the latter, for the former is a 
work of invisible effect, in which decep- 
tion may be possible, but in the latter 
case, the word, if it does not expose 
him to ridicule who uses it, must be fol- 
lowed by a fact visible to all as a proof 
of its efficiency. Without waiting for a 
reply to his question, he continued, 
turning to them and then to the para- 
lytic. " But that ye may know that the 
Son of man on earth hath power to for- 
give sins, — rise, take up thy bed and 
walk.'' 

The men upon the bench in furious 



MORNING. 103 

amazement lowered their heads and 
looked impatiently upon the ground. 
A breathless silence pervaded the 
whole assembly. All eyes were stead- 
fastly fixed upon the sick man, and the 
four still upon the roof were all eyes 
and ears for all that happened below. 
They had looked for some extraordi- 
nary display on the part of Jesus, but 
when quite unexpectedly it took this 
direction, they were completely stupe- 
fied as when a sudden crash of thunder 
follows the lightning. The poor para- 
lytic certainly heard the sound of the 
words, but as yet there was want of 
will to carry them into execution. The 
process of nature called forth by the 
miraculous power of the word gradu- 
ally developed itself, and the look of 



104 A DAY IN CAPERNAUM. 

Jesus fast fixed upon the patient, fol- 
lowed the operation of the word from 
step to step. The stiffness of his limbs 
began to relax, the muscles again quiv- 
ered, feeling and the power of motion 
returned, and as he became conscious 
that his insensible and motionless limbs 
could obey his will, he raised himself, to 
his own astonishment, still higher and 
higher, gaining self-confidence all the 
while, until he finally stood upright, 
and, extending his hands, sunk upon 
his knees, and bent down towards his 
deliverer. But Jesus stepped back and 
pointed to the bed. He then took up 
the bed and held it before him so that 
his view of Jesus might not be inter- 
cepted. He walked backwards, with- 
out losing sight of his Saviour through 



MORNING. 105 

the crowd, which formed a lane leading 
to the door of the house out of which 
he passed. 

Overwhelmed with alarm and aston- 
ishment, the whole crowd maintained 
the most profound silence during this 
occurrence. But when the man who 
was healed had reached the outside of 
the house, exclamations of enthusiastic 
wonder, at first in low tones and then 
louder and still louder broke forth. 
" We never saw anything like this ! '* 
"We have seen incredible things to- 
day ! '' cried one, and others confirmed 
it by the same or similar exclamations. 
But a venerable old man, who might 
have belonged to the more elevated 
class of Capernaitist society, com- 
pressed this confused voice of popular 



I06 A DAY IN CAPERNAUM. 

enthusiasm into one grand and compre- 
hensive sentence. Advancing towards 
the bench which a while ago had been 
occupied by the scribes, but who had 
now secretly left the room, he ex- 
claimed with a loud voice, " Blessed be 
God, who hath given such power to 
men ! " The words were applicable to 
him who called himself the Son of man, 
and which expressed praise to God for 
the power with which He had invested 
this Son of humanity. The popular 
understanding was yet sound — yet 
uncorrupted by false leaders — and 
faith fully echoed back the impressions 
once received. 

The names of the scribes who on this 
occasion charged Jesus with blasphemy 
are not mentioned in the Gospels. But 



MORNING. 107 

the Midrasch to Eccles. vii. 26, has 
probably preserved them. The bad 
woman of whom Ecclesiastes speaks is 
interpreted by the old synagogue com- 
mentary to represent false doctrine 
(minuth), and taken in this sense, the 
Midrasch observes in reference to the 
words, "whoso pleaseth God shall es- 
cape from her,^' that Chananja ben- 
Ittai and Rabbi Joshua are examples of 
it, and that the words, " but the sinner 
shall be taken by her,'' refer to the men 
of Capernaum. 

" The men of Capernaum ? '' — but by 
far not all. Much was yet wanting 
before the whole population of that 
city which Jesus honored as the central 
point of his Galilean activity would allow 
itself to be caught in the net of the gos- 



I08 A DAY IN CAPERNAUM. 

pel of the coming kingdom. Only too 
many were yet too closely wedded to 
their old habits and too much occupied 
with the ordinary affairs of life to be 
inspired with any interest in the works 
of Jesus or with any desire to hear his 
doctrines. They took more pleasure in 
lounging about on the public highway 
and talking about the news of the day 
with passing travellers. For hours they 
would sit and gaze listlessly on the sea, 
observing the departing and arriving 
boats with their crews and lading, or 
squander their time in the tavern over 
their measure of wine, discussing the 
merits of the last year's vintage of Leb- 
anon or Moab, and the policy of the 
measures of Herod Antipas or of 
Herod Philip. They were content to 



MORNING. 109 

let Jesus pass as the miraculous healer 
of the sick, but regarded themselves 
happy in not requiring his services. 
They shook their heads and thought 
the condition of things was not exactly 
right. But with those who had that 
morning crowded around Jesus, the 
prospect was better. We may assume 
that though all may not have been im- 
pelled by the sincere desire of receiv- 
ing spiritual benefit, yet that they felt 
themselves drawn to Jesus by an inter- 
est that lay beyond that which was 
merely earthly. 

When they had accompanied the 
healed man until his exit with looks of 
profound astonishment, and after hav- 
ing manifested their emotions in these 
enthusiastic exclamations, they turned 



no A DAY IN CAPERNAUM. 

round towards Jesus, but he had van- 
ished from his position at the basin. 
He took advantage of this moment of 
confusion, that was occasioned by the 
miracle, to sHp through the multitude, 
and to hasten up one of the back stairs. 
When he had ascended, he fell on his 
knees. The approbation which he had 
heard expressed for a moment discon- 
certed him, and the incident with the 
scribes was the melancholy premonition 
of a bloody end. He composed his mind 
by prayer until the crowd had dispersed. 
It was only when perfect silence was 
restored below that his own spirit be- 
came more calm. Then he rose, and 
going through the upper passage, he 
entered the family -room where the 
countenances of the two women, the 



MORNING. Ill 

mother and daughter, when they saw 
him, were lit up with joy. They were 
reading the Psalms of the day. " Read 
on,'' said he, "and read louder, that I 
also may hear ! " Some time after, the 
four men who had carried the paralytic 
came and brought as a testimony of 
their gratitude a large and splendid 
garland. "Take it,'' said they to Pe- 
ter's wife, " and adorn the chamber of 
our master and helper." But she as- 
sured them that he refuses all presents, 
and that she was strictly forbidden to 
receive any intended for him. Then 
they plucked the garland to pieces and 
scattered the flowers on the ground be- 
fore the house. The children of the 
city came and surrounded this artificial 
garden, and as a voice from the house 



112 A DAY IN CAPERNAUM. 

was heard, " Pick them up/' they bound 
nosegays of these anemones and man- 
drakes, Hlies and roses, ran home to 
their parents, joyfully exclaiming, "See 
here ; flowers from the Jesus House ! " 




NOON. 



lo* H 



"3 




III. 



NOON. 



TOWARDS noon, Simon and An- 
drew, after the half day's work 
was ended, returned from the lake. 
*'What does all this mean?'' said An- 
drew, when he saw the remains of the 
flowers before the house. " Hast thou 
not read," replied Simon, " what Zecha- 
rias says, * Behold the man whose name 
is Branch, and he shall grow up out of 
his place, and he shall build the temple 

of the Lord ' ? " " Why, the flowers here 

"5 



Il6 A DAY IN CAPERNAUM. 

are in such abundance/' continued An- 
drew, " as if the marriage - altar of a 
prince were to be erected/' *'Well," 
said Simon, " is it not a king whom we 
are entertaining in our house ? If our 
wise men say, these rabbis are kings, 
should not he much rather be a king 
whose words and actions are as far 
above theirs as heaven is above 
earth ? '' ** Yes," replied Andrew, " his 
soul could only have proceeded from 
the throne of glory. Is it not just with 
you as with me ? When I only present 
him before my mind, then I cannot re- 
strain myself for love of him, and in 
fancy I fall upon his neck and kiss him ; 
but when I see him really and in per- 
son before me, I shrink back from him 
as from the sacred Ark in the Holy of 



NOON. 117 

Holies, and when he takes my hand in 
his, my whole body trembles, the floor 
vanishes from under my feet, and I 
float between heaven and earth." 

These two men had been engaged 
on the lake since early in the morning. 
They found the noonday meal ready. 
Jesus was called and spoke the beracha 
(blessing). He did not seem to be a 
guest in the family, but master of the 
house. The company was silent and 
waited until he should begin the con- 
versation. "Now then, ye brothers," 
he said, "give spice to this meal, and 
tell us what has happened to-day." 
" Lord," said Peter, laughingly, " the fish 
were more willing to come into our nets 
than the buyers were to take them away. 
Our assortment was the most beautiful 



Il8 A DAY IN CAPERNAUM. 

and yet not the dearest and rarest. We 
offered carps * and soles in great abun- 
dance, at very reasonable prices, but we 
read in the countenances of the people 
who crowded around us the expression 
of the proverb, * A fat bite, but there is 
a thorn in it/ f They seemed to shrink 
from these innocent fish as heretical and 
bewitched." " Have you not read,'' said 
Jesus, " what is said in the Psalms, ' All 
creatures are thy servants ' ? The fishes 

*Ritter, Erdkunde, XV. i, 307. Lynch, Re- 
port, 97. By carp^ Peter means the fish which 
in Hebrew is binotha ; in Arabic, bunni ; the 
Cyprinus bynni of Forskal, and which is the most 
esteemed fish of the Nile. By soles, he means 
potitha in Hebrew ; psetta in Greek. It was for- 
bidden to the Jews and was bought only by the 
heathen. 

fThe proverb is, literally, ^'A fat tail (/. e. of 
the Ovis laticaudata)y and a thorn in it.'' 



NOON. 119 

are better servants than men/' " Yes/' 
said Andrew, "we would have made 
better sales if the market-master and 
several scribes had not stood by, who 
watched with lowering looks all those 
who felt inclined to buy/' ^* But you 
still sold some ? '' asked Jesus. " Yes, 
Lord,'' answered both the brothers at 
once. But Andrew said no more, and 
let Peter alone relate how that royal 
personage, who thanked Jesus for the 
deliverance of his son, helped them out 
of their difficulty as frequently before, 
and spared them the necessity of wait- 
ing too long. 

"But," continued Jesus, "you were 
after all not detained too long in the 
market. What else had you to do?" 
" We went," continued Peter, " to carry 



120 A DAY IN CAPERNAUM. 

in our boat to Bethsaida a load of 
Chorazin wheat that was sold to that 
place. There we met five men who 
were inquiring for us a long time on 
the banks of the lake. One of them 
cried out to us, ' It is well that we have 
found you. I am your debtor. I am 
indebted to your great guest for the 
restoration of my health, though it was 
at the expense of the roof of your 
house.' As he was explaining the mat- 
ter to me, he pressed a gold denarius 
into my hand, but I refused to take any- 
thing until I ascertained what the repa- 
ration of the house would cost. Then 
his face changed color, and he asked 
in a low tone, 'Will you not row us 
over, that we may go to Bethsaida-Julias 
by the shortest route?' * Certainly/ 



NOON. 121 

said I, * if you hurry, and we will even 
take the usual fare/ Then they walked 
back some distance, and returning with 
their luggage, entered our boat. They 
had a litter, and a rose-bush full of 
healthy buds, which had been dug up 
by the roots, of which the man healed 
of paralysis said, ' I will plant this in a 
well-prepared bed of ground before my 
house, and the roses which it bears shall 
be called the Miracle Roses of Caper- 
naum/ The wind came from the west, 
and our boat sailed swiftly along almost 
without using the rudder. It was a very 
pleasant passage, for the five men did 
not grow weary of hearing thee spoken 
of, O Lord ; it was well that there were 
two of us that we might by turns answer 

their questions.'' 
II 



122 A DAY IN CAPERNAUM. 

This table - conversation was inter- 
rupted by an unexpected occurrence. 
Mary, the mother of Jesus, had been 
once before in Capernaum {jfohn ii. 12), 
but since that her longing to see him 
grew with every month of the separation. 
She was always with him in spirit, with- 
out receiving from him the desired re- 
sponse to the sympathies of her heart 
since his entrance upon his public min- 
istry. The feelings even of those more 
immediately associated with her did not 
entirely correspond with her own. But 
the more diligently for this very reason 
did she devote every hour she could 
spare from the oversight of her family 
to labor on his account. She prepared 
linen garments for him, and rejoiced in 
anticipation of some opportunity per- 



NOON. 123 

sonally to deliver to him this work of 
her own hands. Such an opportunity 
now occurred just at the proper time. 
A wealthy friend of her family, who was 
one of the few who recognized Jesus as 
the ambassador of God, had purchases 
to make in Tiberias, which at that time 
had risen to eminence as a commercial 
emporium. His Intention was also to 
visit Capernaum for the purpose of 
again hearing the word of life from the 
lips of the great Nazarene. He in- 
formed Joseph of his design, and added 
that it would not only afford him much 
pleasure, but he would regard it a dis- 
tinguished honor, if he would be allowed 
to take Mary with him. As for himself, 
he would prefer travelling that distance 
of six hours on foot in this pleasant sea- 



124 A DAY IN CAPERNAUM. 

son of the year, but he would provide a 
beast of burden for the use of Mary, and 
take proper measures for her safe re- 
turn home. Mary heard the proposi- 
tion with joyful emotion, and an implor- 
ing look upon her husband was suffi- 
cient to secure his consent. As she 
desired to arrive at Capernaum about 
noon, her travelling companion was 
ready to start the next morning long 
before sunrise. He walked on vigor- 
ously, and the beast appeared to be 
more elevated than oppressed under 
the light burden which it bore. As they 
proceeded through the wheat - fields 
and flowery meadows of Kefar Kenna,* 

"^ Margoliouth, in his Pilgrimage to the Land 
of my Fathers, 2, 270, speaks in glowing terms 
of the floral beauties of this region. 



NOON. 125 

the village still lay above them in pro- 
found repose. The road now wound 
between naked walls of rock and 
through narrow passages. At sunrise 
they saw before them an elevated 
place planted with fig- and olive-trees, 
which was the birthplace of the apostle 
Judas Thaddeus, which is now called 
Subije. And when, after a brief repose, 
they arrived at two fountains on the 
comb of the road ascending the hill, 
they had the first view of the dark sea 
sparkling far down below in the rays 
of the rising sun. As they descended 
the precipitous declivity of the southern 
rim of the hill, they met people from 
Hattin, who told them that Jesus was in 
Capernaum, and had that morning 

already performed many miracles. It 
II* 



126 A DAY IN CAPERNAUM. 

SO happened that just at that time there 
was a boat from Capernaum which was 
ready to sail for that place, on which 
Mary could take passage. The boat- 
men were at first harsh, biit after they 
had exchanged several words with the 
woman, they became subdued and 
polite. 

It was the wife of Simon who first 
heard the light knocking at the door 
below. She rose, and opening the 
wooden grated window a little, that she 
might look down, she bounded back, 
and with a face all radiant with joy, ex- 
claimed, " Mary of Nazareth ! '' She 
had scarcely uttered these words when 
Peter had already hastened down the 
steps. He opened the front door, and 
grasping her by the hand, gave her a 



NOON. 127 

most hearty welcome, saying, " Blessed 
be she who now cometh ! " at the same 
time with his left hand seizing the bun- 
die lying in the folds of her dress. Re- 
turning the salutation, she inquired, in a 
tone that betrayed an apprehension of 
a negative reply, " Shall I find Jesus ? '' 
"Certainly, mother of my Lord,'' ex- 
claimed Peter, and in the same moment 
Jesus descended, followed by the others 
who, to allow him the precedence, re- 
mained behind standing on the stairs. 
For a long time Mary held him encir- 
cled in both her arms, without any op- 
position on his part, and bedewed his 
breast with her tears in which joy and 
pain equally flowed forth. " Peace, 
abundant peace be with you, my dear 
mother,'' said Jesus, whilst he pressed 



128 A DAY IN CAPERNAUM. 

his lips Upon her fair forehead. Then 
leaning upon his arm, he led her up to 
the room, where for the first time the 
women saluted her with Qverjoyous wel- 
come ; and then also Andrew, with emo- 
tion unutterably full, advanced, whose 
hand she shook most tenderly. But as 
the women were desirous of hearing 
how Mary could have come to Caper- 
naum at that time of day, Peter inter- 
rupted them by saying, "Why do you 
let our friend stand so long ? she must 
be weary of her long journey. Sit 
down, lady, by the side of the master of 
our house and break bread with him, that 

you may be refreshed and honor us. We 

/ 
would like to offer you something better 

than this salt fish;* but you, Hannah,'' 
*Lewysohn, Zoologie des Talmud, p. 256. 



NOON. I'^g 

he said to his wife, " go and bring grapes 
and figs, such as they have not in Naza- 
reth, so that our guest may taste of the 
blessings of the land of Genesaret* 

Whilst they were seated at the table, 
Jesus himself inquired under whose 
protection and by what way she had 
come, and as she had forgotten to eat 
amid the enjoyment which the gratifica- 
tion of her long-cherished desire had 
afforded, he pressed her to partake of 
the food before them. But as he added 
that afterward she should go with him 
to his chamber, she gave him a look of 
profound gratitude, and the others, who 
until then had kept a respectful silence, 
now felt themselves emboldened to 
speak. " How happy you are,'' re- 

*Josephus, Wars, III. lo, 8, 
I 



130 A DAY IN CAPERNAUM. 

marked Mary, "that you always have 
in sight this large and beautiful and 
animated lake, whose waves brought 
me here so gently and yet quickly 
after my long ride upon the beast of 
burden ; and what a lovely position this 
town has, whose houses, seen from a 
distance, seem to float upon the water." 
"Yes, Capernaum is beautiful," said 
Simon, " and never was it more beauti- 
ful than now, when it has become, as its 
name imports, the city of the Comforter 
and of consolation,* but to most of its 
inhabitants nothing is comparable to a 
fat chicken with old wine." " But Naza- 
reth also," interrupted Andrew, " is not 

* Menachem (Comforter) is, according to Jer. 
Berachoth, 5a b, Sanhedrim, 98^^, etc., one of the 
names of the Messiah. 



# 



NOON. 131 

to be despised ; we see the lake, and if 
you ascend the hill, you have a view of 
the sea. I shall never forget the even- 
ing when from that place I saw the 
sun sink down into the sea between 
Carniel and the bay of Acco." " You 
are right, Andrew,'* said Jesus; "that 
hill also shall I never forget It was to 
me what Sinai was to Moses." " While 
you were yet a small boy,'' continued 
Mary, " that hill was your favorite place, 
and when I missed you, and Joseph 
went after you, he seldom sought for 
you there in vain." 

After they had conversed on these 
subjects, then came inquiries after the 
individuals of Mary's family. " How is 
Joseph," asked Peter, " he who so faith- 
fully nursed that tender scion* which 
*Is. xi. I. 



132 A DAY IN CAPERNAUM. 

has now grown up to be the tree of 
life?" Then inquiries were made con- 
cerning the brothers and sisters* of 
Jesus, for the women now beHeved that 
they also were allowed to take part in 
the conversation. They inquired about 
their external affairs, but also of the in- 
ternal position they maintained towards 
Jesus. Mary, well aware that she now 
found herself within the circle of the 
strictest confidence, expressed herself 
freely, whilst her countenance was by 
turns lighted up with joy and saddened 
by regret. As soon as she began to 
speak they were all silent, and followed 
with the closest attention her rather 
slow but well-weighed and well-chosen 
words. It was pleasing to her to ob- 
* Matt. xiii. 55 ; John xii. 5. 



NOON. 133 

serve how the light and shadow that 
passed by turns over her own spirit, 
awakened similar emotions in the minds 
of those around her. But Jesus was 
content to be only a hearer. He left 
his mother to his friends, who enter- 
tained her and rejoiced at seeing her 
received with such unaffected kindness. 
When the meal was finished, which 
on this occasion had extended far be- 
yond the usual time, Jesus rose, and 
with covered head returned thanks. 
After God had been thanked, Mary also 
thanked all these dear friends. Then 
she followed a sign from Jesus and 
went up to his chamber, where Peter 
had already conveyed, as she heard, 
what she had brought with her. As she 
now had him alone before her, and had 



134 A DAY IN CAPERNAUM. 

attained the object of her longing de- 
sires, she then embraced him, but in- 
stead of kissing him, as she had done a 
thousand times in private at home, she 
hid her face upon his shoulder as he in- 
clined towards her, and amid violent 
trembling of her body, a stream of 
tears burst from her eyes. She wept 
without speaking, and clung to him 
with energy. After some time, Jesus 
said, " Mother, be composed and sit 
down by me and tell me why you thus 
weep ? '' And whilst they were seated, 
she began, with her hand lying in his, 
to regain her composure, and then he, 
fixing his eye steadily on her, thus 
spoke, " I rejoice that I have you again 
with me, and yet regret that soon I shall 
not have you any more. Do you know/' 



NOON. 135 

asked Jesus, " how soon or late I shall 
leave this world ? '* " Oh, my child/' she 
replied, " the deathly paleness of your 
countenance and the leanness of your 
hands tell me that you are exerting 
yourself beyond endurance, and even if 
you were not doing that — true, I am 
but a woman and confined to the four 
walls of my house — but how can I help 
observing that the hatred of your ene- 
mies is increasing from day to day, and 
that they have long combined to put 
you to death ! '' " Well and good," said 
Jesus, interrupting her, "but has not a 
large number of the people espoused 
my cause, which will frustrate the plan 
of my enemies ? '* " Yes,'' replied she, 
" the power of your preaching, your 
freedom of speech against those in 



136 A DAY IN CAPERNAUM. 

authority, the novelty of your doctrines 
and especially your miraculous cures, 
have gained you many friends, but this 
popular favor is like a mountain rivulet, 
which suddenly swells up and as soon 
subsides." *'You are right, O blessed 
among women,'' answered Jesus, "the 
majority of this people are not seeking 
redemption from sin, but from quite dif- 
ferent burdens, and when the time of 
separation shall come, they will ungrate- 
fully and meanly abandon me. Your 
view into the future does not deceive 
you, but the enmity and unfaithfulness 
of men must serve God's purposes, for 
the fulfilment of which I am come into 
the world. My way leads down a preci- 
pice before which I shrink, but without 
my own will I follow the God in me, 



NOON. 137 

whether it be upwards or downwards/' 
At these words, his countenance, which 
for a moment had been sad, became 
transfigured as it were, for the divinity 
in his human being shone forth ; and 
Mary, breathing in all the heavenly 
rays streaming from his glorified face, 
felt herself pervaded with supernatural 
exultation. A long pause ensued. Mary 
was silent, but she was, as always, en- 
tirely absorbed in prayer. '' Beautiful,*' 
thus spake her spirit completely sunk 
in God, — " beautiful was the rising sun, 
beautiful was the green turf, beautiful 
the blue sea, beautiful was this feast 
of love in this faithful family, but more 
beautiful than all is He. What an hour 
is this ! My eyes shall see the king in 
his beauty.'' * 

*Is. xxxiii. 17. 



138 A DAY IN CAPERNAUM. 

" Now, what answer does my mother 
give ? '' asked Jesus, breaking the si- 
lence. Then she extended her hand 
towards his head without touching it, 
and exclaimed, " Blessed art thou who 
sayest, Lo, I come ; I delight to do thy 
will, O my God ! " * '' And blessed,^' he 
continued, grasping her hand, " be she 
who yieldeth her will to the will of her 
maker, and whom a sight of the sword 
which is to pierce her through does not 
alarm ! But now, tell me, what is in the 
bundle there with which you burdened 
yourself? '' The transition to this ques- 
tion was abrupt, and to answer it, it was 
necessary for Mary to use a different 
tone which she gained only by degrees. 
" What is more pleasant for a mother/' 
* Ps. xl. 8. 



NOON. 139 

she continued, than to labor for a be- 
loved child ? and what would be more 
painful for her than to be compelled to 
surrender this advantage to other 
women ? The bundle consists of all 
sorts of linen garments, of which you 
stand in need. True, it is not the finest 
linen, for we are too poor to procure 
that, but it is substantial and clean, and 
everything was cut out, sewed, and 
hemmed by myself. My thoughts are 
always employed about you, but I never 
think of you with greater satisfaction 
than when I am able to do something 
for you.*' 

As she opened her treasures and 
took out each piece, mentioning its pur- 
pose and use, Jesus exclaimed several 
times, " How richly you have cared for 



I40 A DAY IN CAPERNAUM. 

me, and how industriously you have 
worked ! This is more than I need and 
more than I can use. That is just as 
beautiful and ample as the fitting out 
of a son who brings home his bride or 
who sets out on a long journey ! '' She 
knew well her present was far from de- 
serving this exalted praise, but how 
glad she was that he was gratified — 
those cheeks of hers so familiar with sor- 
row had not for a long time reddened 
so deeply. 

Then the Lord laid his arm upon her 
shoulder, and as he thus conducted her 
to the bench against the wall, and had 
taken his seat by her side, he said, 
"Now continue to relate to me what 
you began down-stairs at the table ! Is 
the town upon the hill still white with- 



NOON. 141 

out* and dark within ? '' " Even to this 
day, my son and Lord," replied she, 
"are they as inimical to you as they 
were when they had determined to hurl 
you down into the abyss from the edge 
of the hill" t " And is Mary," he con- 
tinued, "still like a lily among thorns/' 
" Yes, Lord," was her answer, " the 
daughter of Eli J continues to be the 
favorite subject of wicked tongues, but 
she lives so retired that the thorns do 
not pierce her." " And your husband ? " 
he asked still further, "they perhaps 
treat him more kindly, because he is a 

'^Nazareth, in Arabic, is medinet abjadh, and 
that is the translation of the Hebrew designation 
bahar laben air. 

fLuke iv. 29. 

J Thus Mary is called in the Talmud. See 
Luke iii. 23. 



142 A DAY IN CAPERNAUM. 

descendant of David ? *' " Oh, no," she 
replied, " he is only a carpenter, and in 
the eyes of the people he committed a 
great sin, because he did not cast you 
away, whom heaven bestowed upon him, 
as illegitimate/' At these words the 
countenance of Jesus was covered as 
with a thunder-cloud, and Mary was 
alarmed as if she had desecrated that 
which was holy in using this language ; 
and with the design of smoothing their 
apparent severity, she added, "But the 
secret of the Lord is with them that fear 
him, and such indignity is our honor/' 
" It is so/' he continued ; " but are the 
brothers and sisters as far above these 
blasphemies of the unbelieving as their 
parents ? " Mary's countenance was 
tinged with melancholy, and^ with a 



NOON. 143 

painful choice of words, she said, " Lord, 
they do not unite in these blasphemies. 
They all prize you highly and love you, 
but they think you go too far ; they are 
alarmed at your opposition to the pres- 
ent order of things ; they cannot under- 
stand how their eldest brother should 
be the Messiah of Israel." ^^ What," he 
asked with astonishment, "have not 
James and Jude proceeded further 
yet ? " * " Yes, Lord," she answered, 
" these two agree with me better than 
the others. Whenever we speak of 
you they are on my side, and as I was 
leaving home, they called after me, ' Sa- 
lute,, him and tell him to pray for us ! ' " 
" That will I do," said he ; " this Galilee 

* The authors of the New Testament epistles 
bearing their names. 



144 A I^AY IN CAPERNAUM. 

is a land of the shadow of death,^ and 
he who has long been confined in a 
dark dungeon becomes only slowly ac- 
customed to the light of the sun/' 

After they had thus spoken for about 
an hour, he rose, saying, " Now, mother, 
I must leave you. The time of the min- 
cha (evening) has come, and my voca- 
tion directs me to the lost sheep of the 
house of Israel." " Am I not also one 
of them ? '\ she asked. ** No,'' answered 
he ; " you know the Shepherd of Israel, 
and can say with Shulamite, My friend 
is mine and I am his." " But since you 
travel up and down the country," said 
she, " I see you so seldom, and yet I am 
so happy when I see you." " You will 
see me many times yet," he continued, 

''' Is. ix. 2. 



NOON. 145 

" but you will not see me with unalloyed 
joy until the next world/' " Yes/' she 
replied, "I must wean my spirit from 
you for this life, but what is easy to 
you by virtue of the divinity that reigns 
within you, is hard for me, who am 
nothing but a weak child of humanity/' 
"And I know,'' he resumed, "the cir- 
cumstances which after God has ele- 
vated you so high, yet draw you down 
to earth, and which will not permit 
your heavenly aspirations to be disap- 
pointed/' 

These words were consoling. She 
felt that he read her inmost soul. " Now 
let us go," said she, "and do not spend 
upon me, a single person, any more of 
that time which you owe to the many." 

He kissed her forehead and said, " So, 
13 K 



146 A DAY IN CAPERNAUM. 

go in peace, but stay here in Caper- 
naum with this dear family as long as 
you can. I hope to see you again, even 
if not under circumstances like the pres- 
ent You need the strengthening of 
your faith, but before long you will be 
able to lift your voice with the proph- 
etess Miriam, ' Let us sing unto the Lord, 
for he hath done wonderful things ; the 
horse and his rider hath he cast into 
the sea.' " 




EVENING. 




147 




IV. 

EVENING. 

IT was a hot and sultry day. At 
noon the streets of Capernaum 
were almost entirely deserted. But 
now the sun's rays fell more obliquely 
and were less scorching, for the heat 
was dispersed by a gentle breeze from 
the north-east. Hermon with his snow- 
covered head had nodded a friendly 
salutation to Tabor and the land of 
Gilead. Men, women, and children 

13* 149 



ISO A DAY IN CAPERNAUM. 

swarmed out of the houses, of whose 
existence at the present time there is 
no other evidence but ruined founda- 
tions and overturned walls. The peo- 
ple streamed towards the beautiful 
synagogue built in the Herodian style 
of architecture, whose pillars and blocks 
of stone with their rich sculptures,* now 
lying in confused masses amid brambles 
and thorns, show to us this day that the 

* See the photographic views of this field of 
ruins in Dixon, The Holy Land. Captain Wil- 
son has also published large photographs of the 
Lake of Genesaret and its surroundings, includ- 
ing the ruins of Tell Hum. Dalton, who has 
published beautiful Travel-Pictures of the East, 
agrees with Thomson (the American author of 
the book, The Land and the Book), and Wilson, 
and Zeller, a missionary in Nazareth, that Tell 
Hum of the present day is the ancient Caper- 
naum. 



EVENING. 151 

wealthy city by the lake may well have 
been proud of it and thankful also to 
the well-known centurion in the gospel, 
who had built or restored it.* 

The city, which was inclined towards 
the lake, formed an oblong square, of 
which the south - eastern long parallel 
ran along the shore, and the synagogue 
was situated nearly in the middle. 
" Abba," said a boy in a low tone to his 
father as they were passing the house 
of Simon, "will Rabbi Jeschu come to 
the synagogue to - day ? '' " Perhaps," 
he replied, " but do not call him rabbi ; 
he is a risen prophet. John was Elijah, 
and he has in him the soul of Elisha." f 

* Luke vii. 5. The expression does not neces- 
sarily imply building ; it may also be understood 
oi finishings restoration^ renovation. 

f Matt. xvi. 14. 



152 A DAY IN CAPERNAUM. 

" If only this man * would spare us his 
presence to-day/' said a man to his wife 
in passing, and who, not to provoke the 
wrath of her husband, made no other 
reply than, " Do not speak thus/' 

In one of the streets which led to the 
wharf, an almsgatherer joined a ruler 
of the synagogue and said, " Have you 
heard of what occurred this morning in 
the house of Simon the fisherman?'' 
" Not heard of it ! " he replied ; '' the two 
rabbis are furious and demand satisfac- 
tion from the leaders of the congrega- 
tion, and really we dare not allow our 
teachers to be thus publicly put to 
shame by a layman/' " But did they 

'^Thus they called him, and even yet those 
who do not wish to pronounce his name with 
their lips. 



EVENING. 153 

not deserve It? '' said the former. " He 
saw very plainly that they came as 
spies, and then he swept them out like 
leaven.'' * *' O Sir Abraham ! '' ex- 
claimed the officer of the synagogue, 
" are you also already leaning towards 
both sides ? You also are inclining to 
the Nazarene, and is it not written. Can 
a man take fire in his bosom and his 
clothes not be burned '' ? f The alms- 
collector was alarmed that he had 
spoken so boldly. '' Mar Lazar,' said 
he, to repair his want of discretion, 
"we must not leave the ignorant 
masses to their own guidance. It is 
always better for one of us to be pres- 
ent. A gabba (collector) must be every- 
where in order to know his people." 
* Jewish proverb. f Prov. vi. 27. 



154 A DAY IN CAPERNAUM. 

The colonnade of the synagogue and 
the place before it was crowded with 
people. The whole congregation, or as 
many of them as were present, was out- 
side of the house of God. Many walked 
up and down alone, others by twos or 
threes. They spoke of the news of the 
day, and were anxiously looking for 
Jesus, for often as they saw him, they 
w^ere never satisfied, and always awaited 
his coming with as much solicitude as 
though they had never seen him before. 

In the vestibule were the two deeply 
insulted rabbis in earnest conversation 
with some church - officers. Several, 
prompted by curiosity, joined the circle, 
and their attention was visibly divided 
between what was going on without 
and that within. " With your leave, you 



EVENING. 155 

leaders of the congregation/' said one 
of the rabbis, "you will soon show 
whose honor is most cherished by you 
— that of your teachers or that of this 
ignorant fellow ? '' " If he only had not 
settled himself down in Capernaum ! " 
replied one of the leaders ; " we are in 
terrible perplexity/' " Not only that," 
added the other, " but there is a higher 
power to whom we must give account ; 
it is that which makes us timid." 
"How," shrieked the second rabbi, 
"you are still leaning towards both 
sides ! Do you not know what the law 
says, 'If thy brother, the son of thy 
mother, .... entice thee to serve 
other gods, thine eye shall not pity 
him, neither shalt thou spare him ' ? '' * 
*Deut. xiii. 6. 



156 A DAY IN CAPERNAUM. 

Upon this, one standing upon the 
threshold exclaimed, "He is not an 
idolater ; he honors the God of Israel 
by his words and works/' '*No, it is 
not so ; he deserves not only excom- 
munication but something worse, for he 
makes himself God,'' cried out both 
the rabbis as with one voice. 

"You do not understand him,'* re- 
plied the man, and then turning to 
those standing outside, he exclaimed, 
" Men of Capernaum, these Jerusalem- 
ites have come here to bribe us to be- 
come the murderers of this innocent 
man ! " The crowd around these men 
grew larger when the two rabbis with- 
drew, and, uttering execrations upon 
the ignorance of the Galileans, entered 
the synagogue. 



EVENING. 157 

Just at this time the attention of all 
those in the colonnade, and in the open 
place before it, was enchained by the 
appearance of Jesus. A crowd of chil- 
dren preceded him, and another fol- 
lowed him. Their behavior amid all 
the emulation of curiosity was more 
timid than bold. They did not venture 
to approach too near, and they spoke 
more by signs than words. But the 
crowd in front of him, having reached 
the public square, lifted up the shout 
of triumph, " He is coming ! he is com- 
ing ! '' and rushed tumultuously towards 
the gate of the synagogue, there to se- 
cure a favorable position to gratify their 
curiosity. The multitude of men and 
women in the place became suddenly 

silent, as though they were expecting a 
14 



158 A DAY IN CAPERNAUM. 

festal procession. And as Jesus now 
turned the corner of the street which 
led to this public square, all eyes were 
fastened upon him. The crowd of chil- 
dren which followed him lost them- 
selves behind the row of spectators, and 
tried to secure some prominent posi- 
tion to see him when he entered the 
synagogue. The two ranges of spec- 
tators formed a sort of lane through 
which he passed. All those before 
whom he had passed now mingled in 
one mass and became a growing ret- 
inue every step he took. Kindness this 
time irradiated the usual melancholy 
expression of his countenance. He 
looked neither upwards nor down- 
wards, but straight before him ; but as 
often, either from the right or the left, a 



EVENING. 159 

Sincere scheldm, or ischar^ (according to 
the more Grecian mode of salutation), 
was heard, he turned himself sidewards 
and acknowledged it by a wonderfully 
gracious lighting up of his face. The 
tongue of many was bound by the un- 
controllable power of the impression* 
which his majestic presence made upon 
them. Others remained dumb, because 
they did not wish to draw any line of 
communication between themselves and 
the courageous stranger, the possessor 
of supernatural powers. A venerable- 
looking old man muttered in his hear- 
ing the usual salutation when a king 
was seen, " Blessed be thou, Lord our 
God, King of the world, who hast 
granted unto men to partake of thy 
* Lightfoot on Matt, xxviii. 9. 



l60 A DAY IN CAPERNAUM. 

glory ! '' and a ragged beggar kneeled 
before him as he passed, and kissed the 
hem of his garment. The larger of the 
children who had secured places at the 
gate, had in part lifted their little 
brothers and sisters upon their shoul- 
ders, that they might have a better 
view of the great miracle-man. Some, 
more bold, had climbed up the columns 
and window-cornices. The nearer he 
approached, the more silent became 
the young people, but the little ones 
perched upon the shoulders of their 
brothers could not be prevented from 
shouting and other boisterous demon- 
strations. "The Nazarene ! '' exclaimed 
a little girl whilst pointing towards him, 
and almost touched the band around 
his head. Undisturbed by this childish 



EVENING. l6l 

curiosity and unhindered, he entered 

the house of God, but so much greater 

was the press behind him, when he had 

crossed the threshold. 

The eyes of the dense crowd sought 

for him in vain. For as soon as he had 

entered the synagogue, he immediately 

turned to the left and sat down upon 

one of the most distant seats by the 

wall, just opposite to the sacred shrine 

which concealed the Law behind a 

splendid purple-blue curtain bordered 

with gold. But the sun seemed better 

instructed as to his position, for the 

evening rays shining down through the 

tall windows appeared to seek his face 

v/ith predilection, and rendered to the 

assembled multitude the same service 

which the miraculous star did to the 
14* L 



l62 A DAY IN CAPERNAUM. 

Wise men. The rabbi officiating at the 
pulpit before the shrine prayed with an 
unusual devotion. An extraordinary 
sanctifying influence proceeding from 
the person of One pervaded the whole 
sacred service. As at present, the 
psalm was chanted at the beginning. 
" Does he pray with us ? '' asked nearly 
all. Profoundly absorbed in his own 
thoughts, he sat there with his look 
steadily fixed upon the receptacle of 
the Law, but his lips moved, and the de- 
votion of the congregation was mightily 
elevated by this communion in prayer. 
When the schemone esre (the prayer of 
the eighteen benedictions) with the 
benediction aboth (the fathers) began, 
and the following words were uttered, 
"Thou who rememberest the mercy 



EVENING. 163 

shown to the fathers, and sendest a re- 
deemer {goel) to children's children for 
thy name's sake in love/* the eyes of 
the assembly were directed towards 
him, for if by far not all of them re- 
garded him as this redeemer, yet they 
all knew that he considered himself as 
such. When the techinna (the peni- 
tential prayer) came, and the reader fell 
upon his face on the steps of the sacred 
shrine, Jesus also inclined his head and 
hid his face with his left arm, as did 
all those present. When the final kad- 
disch was intoned, he raised his head, 
and his countenance shone, so that one 
of those who believed in him whispered 
to his neighbor, *' Behold the king in 
his beauty!''* With the words of 
* Is. xxxiii. 17. 



164 A DAY IN CAPERNAUM. 

Proverbs,* " Be not afraid of sudden 
fear, neither of the desolation of the 
wicked when it cometh," the vesper 
liturgy came to an end. His eyes now 
swept over the congregation and en- 
countered the piercing gaze of the two 
Jerusalemites. He withstood their de- 
fiant stare and compelled them to lower 
it by the tender ardor of his own look. 
One of them muttered, "The evil eye 
of this magician killeth.'' 

The women in their distinct gallery 
were in a very uneasy state of mind 
during the whole service. It was not 
long before the presence of Jesus gave 
occasion to a most shocking interrup- 
tion of the worship. A man possessed 
with a demon had risen during the 
* Prov. iii. 25. 



EVENING. 165 

silent prayer and cried out, "Let us 
alone ; what have we to do with thee, 
thou Jesus of Nazareth? Art thou 
come to destroy us ? I know thee who 
thou art, the Holy One of God."* 
Those who had heard and seen this 
could not possibly forget the thrilling 
shriek, and the distortions of counte- 
nance and bodily convulsions amid 
which it was uttered. Although Jesus 
had at that time, by the exercise of his 
power," silenced the demon and sub- 
dued his influence over the wretched 
sufferer, yet the cure was effected un- 
der such violent manifestations that the 
remembrance of it was more terrible 
than beneficial. 

But the vesper service of the syna- 
* Mark i. 24. 



l66 A DAY IN CAPERNAUM. 

gogue of that day passed without any 
interruption, and the wonder-worker of 
the morning sat silent and unassuming 
amid the members of the congregation, 
and would have preferred to escape 
from the assembly unobserved. But 
when the worship was concluded they 
all remained in their places for some 
time. On several previous occasions 
Jesus had stood up in the synagogue to 
teach, and his teaching had excited the 
astonishment and admiration of the 
hearers, for he taught, as the evange- 
lists express it,"^ as one having author- 
ity and not as the scribes, that is, he did 
not confine himself to the explanation 
of a few passages of Scripture accord- 
ing to certain rules of interpretation, 
*Mark i. 21. 



EVENING. 167 

but, in the consciousness of being him- 
self a messenger of divine revelation, 
he superadded a new revelation, and 
showed from the whole of the sacred 
Scriptures that this new revelation was 
a fulfilment of the old. The people 
anxiously waited some time to see 
whether he would ascend to the read- 
er's place, and teach. But he did not. 
Neither did he leave the synagogue 
immediately. The two Jerusalemites 
passed out before him and remained 
standing outside to see whatever else 
might occur. When the assembly broke 
up, Jesus tried to go out unobserved, 
but that was not possible. The people 
stood back timidly and reverentially, 
and thus made an open passage for 
him. But a youth advanced towards 



l68 A DAY IN CAPERNAUM. 

him and in a low and trembling tone 
asked, " Lord, hast thoy no word for us 
to-day ? '* " Come down to the lake 
soon after sundown,'' he replied in an 
equally subdued tone. Scarcely had he 
escaped from the view of the crowd, 
than the word went from mouth to 
mouth, '* This evening, down at the lake- 
shore ! " 




NIGHT. 




15 



169 




V. 

NIGHT. 

CAPERNAUM at the present time 
is an imposing mass of ruins ex- 
tending into the lake and overgrown 
with tall grass, thistles, trailing plants, 
and underbrush. It is called Tell 
Hum.* The abbreviation of the name 

* This name, Tell Hum (or Chum with the 
unpointed Arabic Hha), is given in the Arabic 
Geographical Lexicon of Jakut to a fortress be- 
tween Syria and Cilicia, as well as the name 
Caphir Nachim by Benjamin of Tudela to a place 
between Chesa and Csesarea, which from a dis- 
tance seems to overtop Carmel, 

171 



1^2 A DAY IN CAPERNAUM. 

Nahum (for Capernaum means the vil- 
lage of Nahum) into Hum was proba- 
bly common in the ancient popular lan- 
guage, for in like manner was the name 
Nechunja in Palestine mutilated into 
Chunja.* But it is also possible that 
the Arabians first made the old Nahum 
a popular word in this way. 

It is not an Arabic proper name, 
neither does a herd of camels signify 
AuMy but el-haum {el-kom). The word 
tell means a heap thrown up,f and 
hence hill or elevation ; and as a con- 
stituent of the names of places it desig- 
nates the position of these places either 

* Frankel, Introductio in Talmud Hierosoly- 
mitanum^ 80^. 

f From the verb talla, to throw upon the 
ground. 



NIGHT. 173 

upon an elevation, or also at or near 
one. From Tell Hum the land rises 
northwards to the extent of half an 
hour, so that the place, seen from a dis- 
tance, seems to have a hill behind it. 
A path which winds up a flat valley 
stretching from the northwest leads the 
wanderer, after he has proceeded an 
hour, to a small spring called Bir 
Kerase.* In a southwestern direction 
from it is an inconsiderable ruin named 
Khirbet Kerase,f but the foundations 
of dark stone yet remaining render the 
ruins observable from a distance. Now, 
the path crossing and recrossing the 
little stream loses itself under luxuri- 
ant grass and volcanic stones, among 

* Robinson, Later Biblical Researches, 467. 

I Robinson, Ibid. p. 455. 
15* 



1/4 A DAY IN CAPERNAUM. 

which you cannot find your way with- 
out a guide, and even then it costs la- 
bor and care. There is no longer any 
trace of a road which connected the 
place lying in ruins with the springs. 
It was all different in the times to which 
we are trying to look back and to live 
in. At that time Galilee was scattered 
over with cities and towns, of which Jo- 
sephus in his biography reckons more 
than two hundred. The smallest of 
them counted their inhabitants by thou- 
sands. No part of the country lay 
desert; it was everywhere cultivated 
with skill, and resembled an immense 
fruit-garden.* In the plain of lower 
Galilee, the sycamore and the date, both 

* Josephus, Life, eh. 45. Josephus, Jewish 
Wars, III. 3, 1-3. 



NIGHT. 175 

of which cultivated by human care, 
flourished luxuriantly.* Only a few 
decades elapsed from the time at which 
the events we are relating occurred, 
when war had already begun its de- 
vastating work on this garden-spot. 
Earthquakes like that of January i, 
"^^37^ by which in Safed alone nearly 
five thousand inhabitants lost their 
lives,f contributed their portion in 
converting wealthy cities into heaps of 
ruins, and laughing fields into deserts 
of stone. The black basalt which, as 
the ruins testify, served as a building- 
material to ancient Capernaum, and 
which, scattered here and there, cov- 
ered the land rising northwards, is an 

* Jer. Schebiith, IX. Halacha, 2. 
f Robinson, Palestine, 5, 798. 



1/6 A DAY IN CAPERNAUM. 

evidence of the volcanic nature of the 
basin of the lake and its vicinity. A 
road made by removing this basalt 
and limestone rocks mingled together, 
formerly led up from Capernaum 
towards Bir Kerase, a solitary place 
entirely enclosed by hills. Towards the 
west some scattered ruins designate an 
ancient locality where, in the midst of 
golden wheat - fields,* lay the stately 
Chorazin. This place was often visited 
by Jesus in his wanderings through the 
country of Genesaret and the neigh- 
boring places, but without any particu- 
lar result, for to this Chorazin which he 
compared with Tyre, and Bethsaida 
with Sidon, he exclaimed, in looking 
back to his work in Galilee, "Woe unto 
* Menachoth, 85^. 



NIGHT. 177 

you, Chorazin ; woe unto you, Bethsai- 
da ! for if the mighty works which were 
done in you had been done in Tyre and 
Sidon, they would long ago have re- 
pented in sackcloth and ashes.*' The 
judgment with which he threatened 
both has annihilated them more com- 
pletely than Capernaum : first Chorazin, 
which already in the time of Eusebius * 
was a desert; and then Bethsaida by 
the lake, the locality of which is now 
only conjectured.^ 

When Jesus had left the synagogue, 

* Onomasticon, under Chorazein, p. 374, ed. 
Larsow et Parthey. 

f Willibald, in a. d. 750, found a church in 
Chorazin, as well as in Bethsaida. Robinson, 
Later Biblical Researches, p. 467. But this does 
not conflict with the overthrow of the places thus 
designated. 

M 



178 A DAY IN CAPERNAUM, 

he desired to be alone if only for a 
short time. He sought the nearest way 
out of Capernaum, and proceeded about 
a quarter of an hour along the valley 
road leading upwards toward the foun- 
tain of Chorazin, without however pur- 
suing it further, where it turns to the 
left He was desirous of having the 
city and the lake in full view. 

He loved to be alone, that, without 
human interruption or conversation, he 
might hold converse with the Author of 
his origin and of his spiritual life. The 
external world of nature did not disturb 
him, for he comprehended the thoughts 
which the divine Creator incorporated 
in it, and every creature reminded him 
of the divine word of the Sacred 
Scriptures. The dry wady (valley) 



NIGHT. 179 

Stretching up towards him said to him, in 
the words of the book of Job, "My breth- 
ren have dealt with me deceitfully as a 
brook, and as the stream of brooks they 
pass away,'' * and the lily bidding de- 
fiance to the thorn - bushes, broke 
through these melancholy thoughts 
with the words of Solomon's song, " I 
am my beloved's, and my beloved is 
mine; he feedeth among the lilies." f 
The worm on the ground checked his 
step, whilst, as if praying, he whispered, 
" I am a worm and no man ; " J and the 
block of basalt near the road gently 
suggested the consoling words, "For in 
the time of trouble he shall hide me in 
his pavilion; he shall set me upon a 

* Job vi. 15. f Sol. Song, vi. 3. 

J Ps. xxii. 7. 



l8o A DAY IN CAPERNAUM. 

rock." There was no object in nature 
that was not a source of instruction. 
It was more congenial to him to employ 
natural things as means of imparting 
knowledge. In these solitary walks his 
parables assumed form. The creatures 
not only spoke to him words of God, 
but he everywhere saw in nature and 
the world around him reflections of the 
mysteries of the kingdom of God. 

Not far from the Chorazin fountain 
stood beside the road a shady olive- 
tree, which, taking root in the red fruit- 
soil imbedded between the rocks, had 
acquired an immense crown of leaves. 
Here Jesus sat down, and whether it was 
accident or not, a flock of wild doves 
and pigeons crowded the branches to 
the very top. After he had covered his 



NIGHT. l8l 

eyes with his hand for a while, and had 
depressed his head, he looked up and 
delighted himself with the view which 
presented itself to him from this spot. 
The blue mirror of the lake, still and 
smooth, only here and there gently agi- 
tated by the evening wind, lay before 
him in its full extent, a picture of the 
peace which he was to bring to man- 
kind. On the other side, like a picture 
of the hidden life in God and of God, 
lay the land of oaks and of eagles, the 
ancient Golan — the wooded hill-country 
overtopped by the mountain - ridge 
Gebel el-Hisch, between Jordan and 
Hauran. The hills near the shore re- 
flected back the light of the sun in yel- 
low, violet, and other colors, and below 
at his feet Capernaum glistened in the 

i6 



l82 A DAY IN CAPERNAUM. 

evening gold — Capernaum, the city by 
the lake, where the former territories 
of Naphtali and Zebulon joined each 
other — the point which he had selected 
from which to extricate the world from 
its difficulties, and to conduct it in a 
new path according to the counsels of 
God. He rose, and recited the words 
of Isaiah's prophecy over Capernaum ; 
" Nevertheless the dimness shall not be 
such as was in her vexation, when at 
first he lightly afflicted the land of 
Zebulon and the land of Naphtali, and 
afterwards did more grievously afflict 
her by the way of the sea, beyond Jor- 
dan, in Galilee of the nations." * " Yes,'' 
he continued, "the people that walked 
in darkness have seen a great light; 
* Is. ix. I. 



NIGHT. 183 

they that dwell in the land of the 
shadow of death, upon them hath the 
light shined."^ O Father of lights, 
make me to be the light of men as 
thou hast made the sun to be the light 
of the earth/' " But,'' said an internal 
voice to him, " the sun sets in blood that 
it may rise gloriously again." "Pre- 
cisely so,'* he replied ; " for this have I 
come into the world that I might give 
my life as a ransom for many.'' Amid 
such thoughts, he proceeded towards 
the city by the lake with rapid steps. 
Those who met him remained standing 
long and looked after him as though 
fixed to the spot by the majesty and 
benignity of his person. 

When going out of Nazareth and 
* Is. ix. 2. 



l84 A DAY IN CAPERNAUM. 

passing before Tabor, you have arrived 
at the edge of the precipitous declivity 
above Tiberias, and for the first time 
you have before you the Sea of GaHlee 
to its full extent. The overwhelming 
impression of this view will corroborate 
the thought that this is that point of 
the earth from which the Sun of right- 
eousness was to rise, and that the law 
of the world's history ex oriente lux 
(light from the east) was here fulfilled. 
But the view landward is not calculated 
to foster this impression, especially if, 
as Robinson did in his first tour in 
Palestine, 1838, you visit this place in 
a summer month. You have before 
you a beautiful clear surface of water 
in a deep-lying basin, from which the 
shores rise steep and uninterrupted, 



NIGHT. 185 

except where here and there they are 
cut through by a ravine or deep wady. 
But the hills are anything else than 
bold, but mostly rounded and destitute 
of shrub or forest. The green of the 
spring has long withered, and the view 
of the sea, enlivened by no sail, no boat, 
is melancholy and drear. Robinson 
says* that he who here looks for the 
magnificence of the Swiss lakes, or the 
softer beauty of those in England, or 
in the United States, will be disap- 
pointed. 

But he who had seen the Galilean 
Sea at the time when the fisherman's 
family at Capernaum was entertaining 
the most exalted guest ever entertained 
by man — he who had seen it on the 

* Robinson, Palestine, 3, 500. 
16* 



l86 A DAY IN CAPERNAUM. 

day when Jesus was returning to Ca- 
pernaum from the fountain of Cho- 
razin, would have conceived a much 
more favorable opinion of it. The wall 
of high hills which begirts the east side 
of the sea, and which, entirely bare and 
unfruitful, rises over one thousand feet 
above the surface of the water, made at 
that time, as well as now, a dreary im- 
pression ; but so much more powerful 
was the contrast of the west bank, with 
its hills gently rising from Capernaum 
to Magdala, and from thence down to 
Tiberias, looming up still higher and 
steeper. Here Nature had poured out 
her richest treasures, and here had 
human industry and artistic skill con- 
tributed vastly towards the improve- 
ment of nature where she seemed to fail. 



NIGHT. 187 

The climate of the country thus en- 
closed by mountains is tropical, but at 
that time it was softened by the breezes 
from the densely planted soil, which was 
irrigated, not only by the fresh water 
of the sea, but by the streams running 
down from the hills and the springs, 
bursting out near the shore. It was at 
that time a world - renowned earthly 
paradise ; but now, by wars, earth- 
quakes, the insecurity of property, and 
ignorance, it scarcely retains any fea- 
tures of its former beauty. In the 
books of the Old Testament, this whole 
west coast of the Galilean or Tiberian 
Sea is called Kinn^reth, or Kinneroth."* 
The Talmud combines this name with 
the name of the instrument kinnor^ 
* I Kings XV. 20. 



l88 A DAY IN CAPERNAUM. 

guitar, or lute, where it says, " As pleas- 
ant as the sounds of the kinnor are the 
fruits of Kinnereth/' * And it could say 
nothing greater in praise of these 
fruits than that God would not permit 
them to grow in Jerusalem ; so that a 
visit to Jerusalem might not be prompt- 
ed for the sake of the fruit, but only for 
the sake of worship.^ But the real 
fact is more probably the following: 
There was near the sea an old city of 
Naphtali, called Kinnereth,J or, accord- 
ing to the fashion of many of the names 
of ancient cities, in the plural Kin- 
neroth, § which name embraced both 
sea and coast. The city itself may 

* Megilla, 6a. f Pesachim, 8^. 

J Deut. iii. 17. Josh. xix. 35. 
§ Jer. Megilla I. Halacha L 



NIGHT. 189 

have been thus called, because, when 
you looked over it, it had the appear- 
ance of a guitar. This city afterwards 
received the name Ginnesar (Gennes- 
sar), or Ginnusar,* probably from its 
beautiful gardens, for the name signifies 
the Gardens of the Prince, and also the 
City of the Prince's Gardens.f 

This place must have been yet stand- 
ing in the Middle Ages, for Estori ha- 
Parchi, in 1320, determined from it the 
localities of Zereda, Tanchum, and Ti- 
berias. One of the Talmudical teach- 
ers, named Jonathan ben-Charscha,J is 
called Isch Genesar (the man from Ge- 

* See Targum on Deut. iii. 17; Jos. xvii. 2. 
I Bereschith Rabba, c. 98, on Gen. xlix. 21. 
X Seder ha-doroth, Alphabetical Catalogue of 
Ancient Teachers, 41^. 



igO A DAY IN CAPERNAUM. 

nesar), as Judas the traitor is called Isch 
Kerijoth (the man from Kerijoth). 
Although none of our most celebrated 
travellers know anything of this place, 
yet there is no reason to reject the 
testimony of Rabbi Joseph Schwartz, 
who died in Jerusalem in 1865, accord- 
ing to which a mass of ruins, called 
Gansar, is found, one hour in a north- 
west direction from Tiberias.* 

From this Ginnesar the sea received 
the name which it bore in the times 
when Christianity was introduced. The 
first book of Maccabees and Josephus 
call it Sea of Genesar, while the Gos- 
pels designate sea and land by a name 
having a feminine termination, Gen- 
nesaret, with the exception of the 
* Schwartz, Das Heilige Land, 145. 



NIGHT. 191 

fourth gospel, which calls it by its most 
recent name, which also prevails in Tal- 
mudical literature, the Sea of Tiberias. 
The beautiful valley which opens be- 
fore you in coming from Tiberias to 
Magdala was called the Genesar Valley, 
and pre-eminently the Land of Genesar. 
"There is here,'' says Josephus, "as it 
were a contest in nature, which seeks 
to unite two opposites on one point, 
and an amicable struggle of the seasons, 
each of which tries to take this territory 
into possession. For the soil produces 
the most different and apparently most 
incompatible fruits, not only once in the 
year, but almost the whole year through. 
The royal fruits, grapes and figs, grow 
ten months without intermission, and 
beside them, the other fruits ripen the 



192 A DAY IN CAPERNAUM. 

whole year through in rotation/* * Thus 
Josephus speaks, and thus speak all the 
ancient eye-witnesses of the extraordi- 
nary natural peculiarity and beauty of 
the coast of Genesar. 

The activity which formerly reigned 
upon this lake of six miles long and 
three wide has now yielded to the 
silence of a graveyard dedicated to 
great reminiscences. On the division 
of the country it fell, with its western 
bank as far as Kinneroth, the more re- 
cent Tiberias, to Naphtali, and, accord- 
ing to a tradition, Joshua established the 
condition that fishing with the hook 
should be free to every one, but not 
fishing with seines, for that would inter- 
fere with navigation/* f At the present 

* Wars, III. 10, 8. t Kamma, 2>ob^ ^la. 



NIGHT. 193 

time, the inhabitants fish entirely from 
the shore. The travellers of this cen- 
tury have seen either no boat upon the 
lake, or at farthest only one, which Holz 
brought from the eastern shore.* But 
in the time of which we are speaking 
the sea was crowded with vessels large 
and small, upon which fishermen by day 
and night carried on their business, and 
passengers and freight were conveyed 
along the shore and across the lake in 
every direction. Josephus, as general- 
in-chief of Galilee, once organized a 
feigned attack upon rebellious Tiberias 
from the sea-side, and collected in Tari- 
chia, at the southwest end of the lake, 
a fleet of not less than two hundred 

* Robinson, Palestine, 3, 511. Lynch con- 
veyed one to the lake. 

17 N 



194 A DAY IN CAPERNAUM. 

and thirty-eight boats, each manned with 
four sailors.* When Vespasian and 
Titus, several years later, had captured 
Tarichia, this was the theatre of a ter- 
rible slaughter. Those who escaped in 
hundreds of boats upon the sea were 
pursued by the Romans in hastily con- 
structed rafts. *' The whole sea,'' says Jo- 
sephus, "was colored with blood and was 
full of dead bodies, for not a single man 
escaped. Tarichia alone developed such 
a power of resistance, which however, 
owing to the want of harmony among 
the people, was inefficient against the 
united Romans.'' What activity and opu- 
lence must have reigned in these cities 
and villages of the territory of Genesar ! 
He who looked from the Baths of Tibe- 
* Wars^ II. 21^ 8. Life, c. 32, 



NIGHT. 195 

rias towards the city and the sea had 
before him in the backgrround the 
mountain of Safed and the snow-cov- 
ered Hermon, and from Tiberias north- 
westerly an enchanting landscape culti- 
vated like a garden from the banks of 
the lake up to the mountain ridges. 
It was like the shore of Lake Zurich 
from Zurich to Rappers wyl, all covered 
with houses and blooming with flowers 
and beautiful plantations. 

The ruins of Tell Hum lie on fhe 
northern shore of the lake, an hour s 
distance from the place where the Jor- 
dan, throwing off a mass of white foam, 
enters the lake between the steep de- 
clivity of the shore on one side, and the 
delta of a fruitful plain on the other. 
If the large city whose houses in an- 



196 A DAY IN CAPERNAUM. 

cient times were mirrored in the sea in 
long rows, was not Capernaum, or more 
correctly pronounced and written Ca- 
pharnaum, what other city could it have 
been ? Robinson and others, who place 
Capernaum farther south in the vicinity 
of Ain et-Tin (the Fig Fountain), near 
Megdel, the ancient Magdala, are bound 
to answer this question. When Jose- 
phus, in a battle which he fought with 
the Romans at Bethsaida-Julias, fell to 
thS ground with his horse, and, badly 
hurt, was conveyed to the place called 
Kepharnome, it coincides with the local- 
ity of Capernaum, which was the most 
considerable place nearest Bethsaida, 
which lay eastward from the mouth of 
the Jordan, where Josephus could hope 
to find surgical aid, and to remain con- 



NIGHT. 197 

cealed. Jesus, after he heard of the 
execution of John the Baptist, sailed in 
a boat, with his disciples, to Bethsaida- 
Julias. The people in great crowds fol- 
lowed him on foot, taking the road along 
the lake-shore, and thus they arrived 
first at the place."^ This also can be 
best explained by regarding Caper- 
naum (the chief station of his activity) 
as the place of his embarkation and the 
gathering - point of the people who 
sought him, and by looking for it no- 
where else than where the ruins of Tell 
Hum now lie. The disciples also re- 
turned to Capernaum after they had 
witnessed at Bethsaida the miraculous 
feeding of five thousand people, and 
Jesus had left them that he might be 

* Matt. xiv. 13. Luke ix. 10. Mark vi. 33. 
17^ 



198 A DAY IN CAPERNAUM. 

alone. A storm which the returning 
disciples encountered threatened them 
with destruction, but Jesus, walking 
upon the sea, came to their help,"^ and, 
contrary to their apprehensions, " im- 
mediately the ship was at the land 
whither they went,'' which was the land- 
ing-place at Capernaum. 

But next morning the people saw that 
the boat which Jesus had brought over 
was no longer there, and learned that 
the disciples, but not Jesus with them, 
had already sailed away. Under the 
impression that Jesus had taken the 
land route, they embarked on some 
boats of Tiberias, which were lying 
there in the vicinity of Bethsaida ; and 
again it is Capernaum to which they 
* John vi. 16-27. Matt. xiv. 34. 



NIGHT. 199 

sail for the purpose of seeking Jesus, 
and where they also find him.* You 
cannot resist the impression that Caper- 
naum lay diagonally across from Beth- 
saida- Julias, and that the principal 
scene of the operations of Jesus was 
on either side of the northern margin 
of the lake, as predicted in the book of 
Isaiah.f 

" Besides the mild climate,*' says Jo- 
sephus,^ in describing the land of Ge- 
nesar, "the fertility of the soil is also 
owing to the fact that it is watered by 
a very powerful spring, which the 
natives call Kapharnaum. Many re- 
garded it as a vein of the Nile, because 
it produces fish which resemble the 

* John vi. 22-25. t Is. ix. i. 

X Wars, III. 10, 8. 



200 A DAY IN CAPERNAUM. 

Goracinus (so called from its raven-like 
blackness), which occurs in the Sea of 
Alexandria/' It is Genesar in a re- 
stricted sense, of which Josephus here 
speaks — that delightful section of 
country which is bounded on the north 
by Khan Minije, and on the south by 
hills stretching towards the sea at 
Megdel. If, then, Kapharnaum was a 
fountain, so called from a city of the 
same name, it appears that this city 
must have been located in the vicinity 
of Khan Minije, where Robinson places 
it, and that the Tell Hum,, lying one 
hour farther north, cannot be regarded 
as the ancient Gapernaum. But this 
conclusion cannot be safely drawn from 
the statement of Josephus, for in itself 
it is exceedingly improbable. The 



NIGHT. 20I 

name Kapharnaum (Kapernaum) 
means, as we have before remarked, 
the village of Nahum. Now, it often 
occurs that a place is named after a 
fountain in its vicinity : as the beautiful 
Engedi, which was embellished with 
Solomon's gardens, which word signi- 
fies Rams' Fountain ; and the town in 
Silesia called Warm Spring, from its 
sulphur springs in the neighborhood. 
But it is unheard of, on the contrar^^, 
that a fountain should bear a name 
coupled with "village'' (Kefar). The 
statement of Josephus would be as 
preposterous as if I were to say, be- 
tween Soden and Hochheim, in the 
Taunus Plain, there is a sulphur spring 
which is called the village of Weilbach. 
But if we correct the statement (of 



202 A DAY IN CAPERNAUM. 

Josephus) thus far, and assume that the 
spring was not called Kapharnaum, but 
Gen Kapharnaum (spring of the village 
of Nahum), and suppose that thereby 
one of the springs at Khan Minije is 
meant, and even that one that is situ- 
ated farthest towards Capernaum, called 
Tabigha (Tabika), which abounds in 
marine fishes, and where there are still 
remains of conduits and pipes, which 
in former times conveyed these strong 
waters up and down over the land ; * 

* Whilst Raumer, Palestina, p. 131, and Rob- 
inson, III. 546, do not find the description of 
Josephus properly applicable to any of the springs 
of the territory of Gennesaret, yet they have 
made too small account of the Spring of Tabi- 
gha, near the Ain Madawara and Ain et-Tin; 
ouf view agrees with that of Dixon, The Holy 
Land, p. 313. 



NIGHT. 203 

yet even this would not exclude the 
designation from that Capernaum that 
lay an hour farther to the north. For 
Capernaum did not possess any foun- 
tain of its own; but if it was supplied 
with water from this spring * it is still 
possible that it was considered as be- 
longing to this place by the sea as the 
most important next to Tiberias, and 
was called after it. True, the lake- 
water is itself fit to drink ; the properties 
ascribed to it by Josephusf establish 
this fact. It is sparkling, clear, sweet, 
mild, and cool. Hence, the poorer Ca- 

* The spring at Capernaum, which Schubert 
mentions, 3, 252, is the Spring of Figs. He 
confounds Tell Hum, where he never was, with 
the inconsiderable ruins in the vicinity of this 
Fountain of Figs. 

f Wars, III. 10, 7. 



204 A DAY IN CAPERNAUM. 

pernaites, on their own account, cer- 
tainly did not go to the Spring of Figs, 
or to any other place an hour distant, 
to fetch their drinking-water. But the 
more wealthy must have found the 
spring -water more agreeable on ac- 
count of its purity, for what fastidious 
citizen would readily drink the water 
of a river draining a city, or of the sea 
in which men bathed, and in which 
clothes were washed, but particularly 
in which all the offal was emptied? 

We dare not, however, overlook the 
fact that there is a tradition, which 
located ancient Capernaum at the 
northern end of the territory of Gene- 
sar, in a restricted sense, which is now 
called el-Ghuweir, in the vicinity of the 
present Khan Minije. By khan is 



NIGHT. 205 

meant, in the East, an uninhabited 

one-story building, which is erected for 

accommodating travellers by night. It 

is what in Latin is called diversoriumy 

but not a tavern, only a covert to serve 

as a gratuitous lodging-place. When, 

then, the Minorite Quaresimus, in his 

prolix work on the Holy Land, which 

appeared in 1639 in two folio volumes, 

says, in vol. IL, p. 868, "At present we 

see, where Capernaum stood, many 

ruins, and a miserable diversorium, 

called Menich in Arabic." The present 

dilapidated Khan is meant, between 

which and the bank of the sea, beneath 

a large fig-tree, the so-called Spring of 

Figs streams forth, and occasions by 

the side of the rush-covered bank a 

stretch of the most luxuriant green, 
18 



206 A DAY IN CAPERNAUM. 

Robinson and his associates encamped 
here, on May 19, 1852, in a beautiful 
clover-field. The ruins lying upon a 
gentle elevation a few paces south of 
the Khan, are those, as it appears, of a 
not inconsiderable place, but they now 
constitute irregular masses, and which 
were then grown over by a wheat-field 
nearly ripe for the sickle. Was this 
perhaps the location of Kefar Tanchu- 
min, or more properly Kefar Techumin,* 
mentioned in the Palestine Jewish writ- 
ings? Its name is similar to that of 
Capernaum, but it does not correspond 
to it, for it means the border village, and 
seems to suit that position on the north- 
ern end of the valley of Genesar. The 
disproportionately more extensive ruins 
* Neubauer, Geographie des Talmud, p. 221. 



NIGHT. 207 

of Tell Hum designate the locality of 
Kefar Nahum, or Capernaum, which is 
not to be confounded with Kefar Te- 
chumin.* The French Bishop Arculf saw 
the ancient Capernaum at that place In 
the end of the seventh century. On his 
return from his pilgrimage, and being 
cast away on the coast of West Bri- 
tain, he gave to the Abbot Adamnonus 
on St. Columba, one of the Hebrides 
Islands, the following description : 
"Those who, on returning from Jeru- 

* Sepp inverts the matter. The inconsider- 
able ruin at Khan Minije passes with him for 
Capernaum, and the ruin city Tell Hum, of 
which he says, ^^ The view of it put me in a con- 
dition of perplexity,'* he regards as Kefar Techu- 
min, the ''border village'' between Upper and 
Lower Galilee. But this border place is, accord- 
ing to Matt. iv. 13, nothing else than Caper- 
naum. 



208 A DAY IN CAPERNAUM. 

salem, wish to visit Capernaum, trav- 
el straight to Tiberias, and have to 
pass by the side of the GaHlean Sea, 
and the place where Jesus fed the five 
thousand. From thence, proceeding 
along the beach of the same sea, with- 
out using this road, inclining to the 
shore for any length of time, you come 
to the marine city of Capernaum. I saw 
it from a neighboring hill. Without 
being provided with a wall, and limited 
to a narrow compass between the hill 
and the sea, it extends in long strips 
along the coast, having the hill on the 
north behind it, and the sea on the 
south before it. It spreads out, in the 
direction from west to east,"*" accord- 

* See the Latin text in Robinson's Latin Re- 
searches, p. 466. 



NIGHT. 209 

ing to the law of perspective/' Caper- 
naum must really have presented itself 
thus, when viewed from an elevated 
point to the south of it. The gentle 
rising ground behind it suddenly be- 
came precipitous, the longer side of the 
city became more narrow as it stretched 
out, and the sea formed the foreground, 
which there seemed to terminate. 

Antoninus Martyr, who visited Ca- 
pernaum some decades earlier, found 
there a basilica which enclosed the re- 
puted house of Peter, as a chapel in 
Nazareth encloses the reputed work- 
shop and house of Joseph. Until the 
time of the Emperor Constantine, Jews 
exclusively inhabited Capernaum. But 
this emperor authorized a Jewish Chris- 
tian named Joseph to erect churches in 
18* o 



210 A DAY IN CAPERNAUM. 

Capernaum and other places until then 
exclusively Jewish. The double col- 
umns hewn out of one block, the fallen 
and beautifully ornamented portal, the 
friezes covered with sculptured figures, 
which now lie upon that field of ruins 
amid grass and thorns, may be the re- 
mains of the basilica, which still was 
standing about the year 600; but the 
ruins of the Galilean synagogue, which 
resemble them, make it more probable 
that this was the incomparably large 
and beautiful synagogue of Caper- 
naum.* 

Capernaum lay upon a prominent 

curve of the beach, in which it had a 

natural dam against the sea, which lay 

somewhat deeper, but which was swol- 

* Robinson, p. 455. 



NIGHT. 211 

len high during the winter rains, when 
the wadys from the east and west emp- 
tied their masses of water into it. The 
houses were partly built so near the 
sea that the rear ends extended to the 
very edge ; others stood somewhat 
more distant from it, and had before 
them towards the sea either gardens or 
drying-places for nets. Near the mid- 
dle of this street along the shore, where 
there was an inlet in the beach, was the 
harbor where the boats landed and un- 
loaded their passengers and freight.* 
Here, on the evening of which we are 
speaking, there was unusual animation. 
The report that Jesus of Nazareth- 
would appear there by the sea that 

* Pococke thought that he observed this small, 
round inlet. 



212 A DAY IN CAPERNAUM!. 

evening, spread like wildfire through 
all the neighboring places. True, to 
reach the opposite shore, the time from 
the evening worship until now was too 
short. But still not much more than an 
hour had elapsed when it was already 
known in Bethsaida, and in Chorazin, 
to which the news had been brought 
during the time that Jesus had sat near 
the fountain under the olive-tree. It 
was also already known in Magdala, 
the village of dyers,* and in Arbel, 
lying half an hour westward of Mag- 
dala, with its fortified series of caves 
called Talmanutha,f and in the village 
at the Spring of Figs, the name of 
which is now lost. From all these 

* The Midrasch calls it Magdala of the Dyers, 
f Probably the same mentioned in Mark viii. lo. 



NIGHT. 213 

places streamed crowds of people, the 
majority impelled by curiosity, but many 
also by the desire of being healed. 
Here and there one rode upon an ass. 
This animal is there much more noble 
and intelligent than with us, and is 
nearly as fast as the horse, and more 
so than the camel. 

In Magdala a sick woman, notwith- 
standing her vigorous struggles, was 
put into a boat. Her old mother, who 
was kneeling at her head, had great 
trouble, by persuasion and holding her 
down, to overcome her resistance. The 
boat, owing to the absence of any 
breeze, proceeded very slowly along 
the shore. Occasionally one of the two 
ferrymen would step out into the shal- 
low water, at the urgent importunity of 



214 A DAY IN CAPERNAUM. 

the mother, and draw the boat forward 
by a line. But where was it to land ? 
The old woman often looked up to 
heaven to receive an answer to this 
question when her daughter had be- 
come a little composed. Among the 
crowd who there stood around the har- 
bor, that was also the anxious question, 
Where will he take his stand ? True, 
many were too stupid to make any in- 
quiry about it. Here one gazed upon 
the beautiful and large fishes which a 
fisherman was fortunate enough to 
catch; another examined the empty 
bags to guess at what they had con- 
tained ; a third one conversed from the 
wharf with the pilot of a vessel which 
at the mouth of the Jordan had taken 
in a cargo of iron ware from the smith- 



NIGHT. 215 

shops of Lebanon, and bellowed to him 
in the usual mixture of Latin, Greek, 
and Aramaean, antiki tabliy prakmata 
schopine (beautiful freight, splendid 
wares). Here and there some em- 
barked in a boat and rowed out into 
the lake to have a view of the coast, so 
that they might soon reach the place 
wherever Jesus might appear. Those 
who lingered about the harbor hoped 
that he would at least pass by here, for 
it was more than probable that he would 
not speak to the people where the ves- 
sel loaded with iron ware and other 
boats were discharging their cargoes. 
But will he gather the people around 
him to the right hand or to the left before 
the city? That was the question which, 
with presenting all the grounds for the 



2l6 A DAY IN CAPERNAUM. 

one or the other possibility, occasioned 
a very Hvely discussion among them. 

It was a delightful evening. The 
lake presented a picture of pro- 
found quiet. The splashing of its short 
broken waves with the foam advancing 
and receding resembled the pleasant 
dreams of one calmly sleeping. And 
as one travelling far away looks back 
upon his loved ones, from whom he is 
separated only by space and not in 
heart, so the sun sinking behind the 
western hills sent his evening salutation 
to the lake, and to the Jordan, w^hich, 
with a proud valuation of its own self- 
dependence, flows through it ; * the 
beautiful blue of the waves glittered in 

* Frankl, Nach Jerusalem, 2, 352; and Ritter, 
Erdkunde, XV. i, 308. 



NIGHT. 217 

their gold, and the clouds above spar- 
kled in all the splendid colors of the 
jewels on the breast-plate of the High- 
Priest. But the hills on the other side, 
already of a reddish hue in themselves, 
and now that color deepened by the 
crimson of the setting sun, concealed 
themselves more and more as the even- 
ing shades advanced, as it were, in the 
smoke of the evening sacrifice. On 
this side, a gentle breeze mingled to- 
gether all the fragrancy of the culti- 
vated trees and gardens and of the ole- 
ander wreathing the shore with a rosy 
glimmer, and thus produced a costly 
incense. On the short-stemmed nebek 
or lotus, with its reddish plum-like fruit,* 

* The tree designated by Linne as Rhamnus 
Lotus, now Zizyphus Lotus, is in Arabic nebky 
or, according to the Turkish, nebek. 
19 



2l8 A DAY IN CAPERNAUM. 

doves cooed and warblers chirped theif 
evening hymn. Here and there was 
also seen a pelican,* weary of diving, 
flying towards its roosting-place on the 
neighboring cliffs. It was only at the 
harbor that this holiday solemnity of 
nature was interrupted by clamorous 
voices of men who cared nothing about 
a brilliant sunset or gorgeously crim- 
soned clouds. Those who, in expecta- 
tion of the great preacher and miracle 
worker, sauntered up and down, could 
not help enjoying this quiet scene in 
nature. The children, frisking about 
like lambs, hunted muscles and pearls 
on the shore, gathered wreaths of lilies, 
crocus, scabiosas, and other plants, and 
here and there throwing a flat stone 
* Ritter, Erdkunde, XV. i, 307. 



NIGHT. 219 

upon the surface of the water made it 
skip for many yards. These juvenile 
performances diversified the evening 
picture, without disturbing it. Much 
more animated was that side of the 
coast towards the mouth of the Jordan 
in the direction of Magdala. It was 
most probable that, coming from Cho- 
razin, he would make his appearance 
on this side, and besides, two women 
were walking here, who, it was pre- 
sumed, must certainly know. It was 
the wife of Peter with Mary, who was 
easily persuaded to remain in Caper- 
naum this evening, with the hope of 
hearing the word of life from the lips 
of her son, and to see him engaged in 
his appointed work. 

"We are, perhaps, after all,'* said 



220 A DAY IN CAPERNAUM. 

Mary, " on the wrong side/' " No," 
answered her attendant, "he will cer- 
tainly come from his favorite place at 
the fountain of Chorazin ; we shall not 
miss him." 

" I know the wife of Simon the fisher- 
man," said a woman of Chorazin, who 
was behind the two above mentioned, 
to a Capernaite; "but who is that 
plainly-dressed old woman, who walks 
with such a majestic step and gives evi- 
dence in her appearance of distinction ? " 
"That is Mary, the daughter of Eli,''* 
said the other, " the mother of the Naz- 
arene, who has come to-day to visit him." 
Upon this the man of Chorazin hurried 
before the woman ; but scarcely had he 
turned to look into Mary's face, when 
* Lightfoot on Luke iii. 23. 



NIGHT. 221 

he was compelled again to turn away 
without gratifying his curiosity as he 
desired, for he was not able to endure 
the flash of her eyes. 

Whilst the people in this manner, full 
of expectation, were moving to and fro, 
the Jerusalemitish rabbis might have 
been seen in the garden of a country 
house some distance from the city, from 
the terrace of which there was a mag- 
nificent view towards the north-west of 
the hill of Safed, and farther north still, 
of the snow-covered peak of Hermon. 
The owner of the house and several of 
the wealthiest and most distinguished 
of the Capernaites, whom he had in- 
vited in honor of his guests, and also, 
as he expressed it, to witness the spec- 
tacle of this evening, were sitting in an 



222 A DAY IN CAPERNAUM. 

arbor of the garden, in view of his 
beautiful oranges, lemons, and roses, 
and were engaged in animated conver- 
sation, whilst his servants handed round 
confectionery and the choicest fruits of 
Genesar upon silver plates. The con- 
versation dwelt for some time upon the 
casuistry of tithes. " I have,'* said the 
host, " below in the valley three huts, in 
which my fruit-gatherers live. Dare 
my children and people eat of the 
fruits there without their being first 
tithed ? '' " They dare,'' answered the 
Jerusalemites. " But,'' continued the 
host, "in one of the huts the people 
have entirely domiciled themselves ; 
they have there a hand-mill, and they 
keep fowls." " Even such a hut," said 
the rabbis "is not subject to tithes." 



NIGHT. 223 

^' Be attentive ! listen to it ! " said the 
host to one of his sons standing by. 
" He who Hngers in a perfumery shop, 
though he himself neither sells nor buys, 
still comes out with fragrant clothes."* 
" You Jerusalemites are very happy," 
exclaimed another of the guests, who 
sat at the Fountain of the Law. "Now 
then," was the reply, "do not break 
your connection with Jerusalem, in fol- 
lowing after this Jesus." " Our peo- 
ple," said a wealthy ship-owner, "are 
as ignorant ^s asses." He uttered the 
word chamorin so indistinctly, that they 
were uncertain whether he meant ass 
or sheep. " Yes," said one of the rab- 
bis, in a satirical manner, agreeing with 
him, "that you are ignorant is very 
* Jalkut Mischle, § 550. 



224 A DAY IN CAPERNAUM. 

evident from the jargon of your lan- 
guage/' This remark offended their 
Galilean pride, and put them out of 
humor. An old man, who was at least 
as old as the two rabbis together, re- 
plied, calmly and smiling, " Not so hard, 
ye masters of Hierosolyma.* Galilee 
has not only beautiful scenery, but also 
great men, and you must acknowledge 
that this Jesus is a great man, though 
he may not be a lamdan (learned) 
according to your pattern." " No ! 
no ! '' they both exclaimed,*as with one 
voice. "He is a meschummad (apos- 
tate) ; he is a min (heretic) ; he is not 
better than a goj (heathen) ; he is such 
a am haarez (common fellow) of whom 
Rabbi Jochanan has said, * You may tear 
* Thus the Jews called their city. 



I^IGHT. 225 

him to pieces like a fish/ '' *' Men of 
Jerusalem/' exclaimed the host, in order 
to restore the social equilibrium, " do 
not judge so uncharitably of this man, 
to whom so many sick of Capernaum 
and of the vicinity owe their restoration. 
You have but recently come here ; ob- 
serve him this evening, and besides, do 
not come to such sudden conclusions/' 
Both felt that by such impassioned lan- 
guage they did more harm than good, 
and continued : " Men of Galilee, dear 
brethren, have you not read in the book 
of Job,* ' Do ye imagine to reprove 
words, and the speeches of one that is 
desperate ? which are as mind/ Zeal 
for our nation, whose unity was never 
more necessary than at present, makes 

* Job vi. 26. 
P 



226 A DAY IN CAPERNAUM. 

US SO rude. Does not even the name 
of Tiberias on this side, and of Beth- 
saida Julias on the other side of this 
beautiful lake, remind you that you are 
no longer masters of your own country ? 
A garrison, consisting of heathen hire- 
lings, makes you feel that you are the 
servants of a Herod, and that he is a 
servant of the Romans.* You must 
endure the bust of the Roman em- 
peror upon the denarius, and every 
copper coin you give out or take in at 
least bears his name. Shall we, the 
sons of free men, forever continue to 
be slaves ? No ; our teachers have 
said, ' Between the present period of 
the world and the days of the Messias, 
there is no other difference than the 
* Scheggj on Luk^ vii. 1-3. 



NIGHT. 227 

government of foreigners/ Hence, 
when the Messias comes, He will 
gather Israel around him and break 
the yoke of this ungodly Roman em- 
pire, and purify the land of Israel from 
the abominations of heathenism, the 
theatres and amphitheatres, and circus 
and images, of which the land is now 
full from Jerusalem to Caesarea, from 
Tiberias to Acco, from Neapolis (Sichan) 
to Berytus. Now, look for a moment 
at this Nazarene, and say whether he 
can be the Messias, whom the Minim 
of this Capernaum take him to be. 
Think for a moment of the helm upon 
his head, and the sword in his hand. 
Ye cannot do it. He is not the man 
who will overthrow Rome. Instead of 
uniting the nation, he divides it by his 



228 A DAY IN CAPERNAUM. 

new doctrines, and, instead of leading 
the people to war and victory against 
that empire, he preaches submission to 
slavery and obedience to tyrants/' 

In this strain the two men discoursed. 
When one paused, the other continued. 
The national pride and religious fervor 
of these disciples of the Pharisees had 
something imposing in them when com- 
pared with the selfish servility of the 
adherents of the Romans and of the 
Herodians, and with the dreamy and 
retired life of the Essenes. But as they 
looked round, curious to hear what re- 
ply would be made, the whole company 
was attracted by another curiosity, 
which irresistibly compelled their atten- 
tion. On the street just in front of the 
house there was great commotion. The 



NIGHT. 229 

trampling of hurqed steps was heard, 
and from the confused crowd there 
arose the exclamation which was heard 
distinctly over the garden-fence, '* He 
is coming ! coming by water ! Hurry, 
hurry to the Magdala side ! '' " My 
honored guests/' said the host, " follow 
me if you wish to see him ; for if he is 
coming by water, he must pass near by 
us/' The whole company hastened 
with the host, and took their positions 
under a pavilion upon an artificial 
mound in the corner of the garden, 
from which they had an extensive view 
of the wide expanse of water. 

It was not long before an enviable 
view was presented to those assembled 
on the mound. To them was applica- 
ble the word, which they did not yet 



230 A DAY IN CAPERNAUM. 

know how to appreciate, "Blessed are 
the eyes which see the things that ye 
see/' * But we also regard ourselves 
as blessed who can in spirit transfer 
ourselves to that place and discern 
with our spiritual eyes what they were 
permitted to behold. 

The boat, which sailed by them, car- 
ried Jesus and the four first apostles ; 
for Peter and Andrew had waited for 
him with their boat out at sea, and 
James and John had hurried over from 
Bethsaida.f Behind at the rudder sat 
Simon, with a grave countenance, in 
which was depicted the proud con- 
sciousness of being able to call him 
who sat before him, the guest of his 

* Luke X. 23. 

t Comp. Luke v. 10 with John i. 45. 



NIGHT. 231 

house. Seated upon the front bench and 
with their eyes immovably fixed upon 
Jesus, Andrew and James parted the 
gentle waves with such powerful strokes 
of the oar that the boat, though without 
sails, shot forward with the swiftness of 
the wind. On the middle seat sat Jesiis, 
and on his left hand the disciple whom 
he loved. Jesus with his right hand 
had grasped the right of John and 
pressed it to his heart, and John feel- 
ing the pulse-strokes of that heart was 
overwhelmed in silent rapture. And 
Himself — how shall I describe him, the 
Indescribable ! Youthfulness and manli- 
ness, tenderness and vigor, unimpaired 
strength and nameless suffering, sub- 
lime majesty and bland humility, were 
all wonderfully blended together in his 



232 A DAY IN CAPERNAUM. 

countenance and demeanor. Heaven 
and earth were united in him. Heaven 
radiated through the earth, and the 
earth softened the rays of heaven. 
His appearance was different from that 
of the earHer part of the day ; he was 
not cast down, nor was his mind so 
absorbed as to observe nothing; but, 
with his head elevated and cheerfully 
looking on all around him, he sat like a 
king in his bark, and the many boats 
which followed the direction of his had 
the appearance of being his fleet. He 
loved the evening above any other part 
of the day."^ On this evening he looked 
back with satisfaction upon the work of 
the day, which his Father in Heaven had 

* Let the reader remember how often the word 
evening occurs in the gospels. 



NIGHT. 233 

assigned him. He found himself se- 
cluded from the world, and yet visible 
to all the world, in the midst of his 
church or congregation, which was rep- 
resented in his four apostles. He felt 
the anticipation of the Sabbath, upon 
which he would finally enter to rest from 
his labors. 

Some crimson evening rays seem to 
have belated themselves to die out upon 
his face ; and, as if to see him, the full 
moon, in her mantle purple, rose behind 
the brown hills on the other side, and a 
gentle evening wind sprung up, as if 
to cool the brow of the Lord, and the 
sea rose and sank, as if in solemn 
rhythmical motion, and its waves danc- 
ing around his boat threw back their 



20^ 



234 ^ ^AY IN CAPERNAUM. 

glittering diamonds to him. It was an 
overpowering view. 

As the boat sailed rapidly past the 
garden, Peter directed the attention of 
Jesus to the crowd of spectators under 
the alkit^ He looked over towards it 
with a gracious smile. A youth among 
them 'cried out with a loud voice, '' Elaha 
de lisraely den Malca Meschicha ! " (by the 
God of Israel, that is the King Messias !) 
And the old man impressed the seal 
upon this exclamation by saying, with a 
determined tone, ''ihu nihu'' (it is he). 
Upon this, the two Jerusalemites con- 
strained as many of the company as 

"^ Buxtorf : definition of this Hebrew word is, 
a house standing upon four columns, that the air 
might everywhere penetrate, and still affording 
shade. 



NIGHT. 235 

they could to leave, in crying out, 
"Turn your eyes away: woe unto you, 
you will be bewitched ! '' 

On the south side was the landing- 
place for the boats which brought wood 
from Golan, the forest hill country, from 
the east to the west shore. The boat 
which conveyed Jesus was steered to 
this place, after having rapidly shot by 
the harbor of Capernaum and the city 
in its whole length. When it had ar- 
rived at its destination, very few persons 
had assembled there, and they appeared 
to have no other object in view than to 
inspect the lumber and fuel deposited 
there. On the other hand, it was more 
than a fortunate event that the boat 
with the sick woman from Magdala, 
whose struggles and cries it cost her 



236 A DAY IN CAPERNAUM. 

mother the most vigorous efforts to sup- 
press, had landed just at that place. 
"Lord/' said John, "here's work for 
thee already/' " Certainly," replied 
Jesus, " I must work the works of Him 
that sent me, while it is day ; the night 
cometh, when no man can work/' * 

Scarcely had the mother of the sick 
woman perceived him, when she imme- 
diately recognized him, The Unmistak- 
able One, and exclaimed in heart-rend- 
ing tone, " O Jesus, our teacher and 
helper, thou who art sent of the Al- 
mighty, help my poor child, for the Holy 
One, blessed be He, hath heard my 
prayer in that we have found thee and 
thou hast found us ! " 

Upon this, Peter, with the aid of the 
* John ix. 4. 



NIGHT. 237 

two rowers, who as yet but gently let 
their oars splash in the water, so di- 
rected the boat that it was brought to 
lie close alongside of the other boat. 
Jesus rose ; the woman fell upon her 
knees, but the sick one exerted all her 
strength to break loose and to plunge 
head foremost into the water from the 
other side of the boat. The steersman 
and John, who had sprung over, held 
her by the arms, and her mother con- 
vulsively embraced her and hid her face 
in the long tresses of her daughter's 
hair. Her. tears ceased to flow, her 
thoughts were absorbed in the interest 
of this momentous crisis, and her soul 
devoutly engaged in silent prayer, 
*' Where do these people come from ? '' 
Jesus asked the steersman ; and when 



238 A DAY IN CAPERNAUM. 

he heard they had come from Magdala, 
he said to his disciples, " Woe to this 
Magdala, for it will come to a heap of 
ruins for its licentiousness ; all the rich 
gifts it carries to Jerusalem will not 
help it, for, as the prophet says, 'For 
she gathered it of the hire of a harlot, 
and they shall return to the hire of a 
harlot/ * Then," said he, " turn her 
face this way that I may see her/' 

It was difficult to do this, for she had 
inclined her head down towards the 
water as far as possible. But the kind 
and persuasive words of John prevailed. 
" Mary," said he, for he had leaned 
down, and in a low tone had asked her 
mother for her name, — " Mary, art thou 
willing to continue forever under the 
* Micha i. 7. 



NIGHT, 239 

power of the demons? Behold, the 
conqueror of the demons is before 
thee ! look at him, that thou mayest be 
healed ! We are all praying for thee 
as Moses, our teacher, (peace be with 
him,) once prayed for his sister, — 
'Heal her now, O God, I beseech 
thee/* So do not bring our prayer 
to shame. Now is the time when thou 
canst make thyself and thy mother 
happy." These words had the desired 
effect ; she no longer resisted ; she 
allowed them to raise up her head and 
her face to be turned towards Jesus. 
When she came to see him, her whole 
body was seized with such strong con- 
vulsions that the boat began to rock, 
and she uttered such heart - piercing 
* Numb. xii. 13. 



240 A DAY IN CAPERNAUM. 

shrieks of lamentations that they echoed 
far over the water. But Jesus held her 
gaze upon him fast with the overpower- 
ing lustre of his own eyes. He thor- 
oughly scanned her inmost spirit, and, 
with the fire of his celestial glance, he 
melted the seven-fold chain which fet- 
tered her soul. She who had been so 
furious had become submissive, and 
needed no longer to be held. Her con- 
vulsions ceased, the distortions of her 
face and the restlessness of her eyes 
vanished; drops of perspiration gath- 
ered upon her brow, and mingled with 
the tears rolling from her eyes. Her 
mother made room for her, and, sinking 
down where the former had kneeled, 
she looked up to Jesus, and, with a 
trembling, low-toned voice, thus spoke: 



NIGHT. 241 

" O Lord, I am a great sinner ; is the 
door of repentance open also Jor me?'' 
" Be of good comfort, my daughter,'' * 
replied he ; " God hath no pleasure in 
the death of a sinner ; f thy soul was 
the dwelling-place of evil spirits; be 
thou now a temple of the living God." J 
He interrupted the mother, who ex- 
claimed to him, " Thanks to thee, thou 
comforter of Israel," by saying, "Re- 
turn now in haste to Magdala, and do 
not talk much about this thing, but 
thank God in tranquillity." 

John returned to the boat of Jesus, 
and soon the other boat floated out 
upon the lake. Both the women sat 
upon the middle bench. Mary Mag- 

* Matt. ix. 22. fEzek. xviii. 23. 

J 2 Cor. vi. 1 6-1 8. 

21* Q 



242 A DAY IN CAPERNAUM. 

dalen gratefully held her mother in 
fond embrace, and both sat silent, with 
their eyes intently fixed upon Jesus, 
until a curve in the western shore hid 
him from their sight. 

When the boat containing the women 
had sailed away, Peter fastened his to 
the post to which the other had been 
attached; but Jesus remained in the 
boat, absorbed with his own deep 
thoughts, and without looking around 
for a moment. The disciples, whose 
reverence for him would not permit 
them to propose disembarking, con- 
tinued with him. In the meantime, the 
inhabitants of Capernaum, men, women, 
and children, came together in crowds. 
Among them were soldiers of the He- 
rodian- Roman garrison, and many 



NIGHT. 243 

Strange faces, who had come from 
Peraea, Decapolis,* and Syria, by the 
land route, and this afternoon had 
reached their destination. A happy 
chance had led many, who had struck 
the mountain road, from Tiberias by 
the lake, to arrive precisely this even- 
ing at this place, which they were 
obliged to pass in order to reach Ca- 
pernaum. The toll-house of Matthew, 
who at that time was already much con- 
cerned about Jesus, also detained some 
strangers, who, taking advantage of this 
favorable opportunity of coming near 
to Jesus, delayed their journey further. 
When the place was full, Peter said 
in a soft tone, behind which he con- 
cealed his impatience, '' Mar ana Merab- 
* Matt. iv. 25 



244 A DAY IN CAPERNAUM, 

bdna (our Lord and Master), the people 
are assembled and are waiting for 
thee/' Then Jesus rose. Peter threw 
a plank from his boat to the shore, and 
hastened over it himself first, to test its 
security and to make room for Jesus, for 
just at this spot the mass of people 
pressed forward and the confusion was 
overpowering. Jesus now left the boat, 
followed by the three other disciples, 
and after he had landed, he said, 
^^ Schim 071 Kefd, (thus he called him 
when, in affairs relating to his kingdom, 
he had need of his energetic service,) 
I have selected the palm there as my 
position.'* It was, however, hard to ad- 
vance, for those who had ranged them- 
selves on the shore near the boat were 
for the most part sick people, to whom 



NIGHT. 245 

this position in front had been permit- 
ted from sympathy. And scarcely had 
Jesus set his foot upon the shore, when 
cries for help in various tongues and 
manifold expressions of homage were 
heard from every direction : " Rabbi ! 
Rabbani ! Holy One of the Highest ! 
Son of David ! Son of God ! '' all min- 
gled together in the strangest confusion. 
And when Jesus, waving them away 
with his hand, said, ''Forbear! this 
evening is not set apart for the healing 
of your bodily ailments, but that you 
may hear the word of life for your 
souls,'' they still rushed up towards 
him, that they might at least touch 
him.* When, finally, by the help of his 
disciples, who, each in his own way, with 

* Mark ii. 10. 
21 * 



246 A DAY IN CAPERNAUM. 

kind words, had hushed the multitude, 
he had worked his way to the palm, he 
motioned to the people that they should 
sit down. The elevation of the ground 
upon which the palm stood was rather 
low, but, as the crowd had sat down in 
rows, it could still be seen. The lum- 
ber lying around had been taken pos- 
session of, as far as it reached, by the 
women and children. 

Are we now to assume that Jesus 
spoke to this assembly in a standing 
position ? This idea would be against 
the gospel history, from which, above 
all things, we have to derive the colors 
of our picture. When he delivered the 
Sermon on the Mount, which as the pro- 
gramme of his Messianic kingdom is 
the antitype of the Sinaitic declaration 



NIGHT. 247 

of law, and at the same time a type of 
his method of preaching, he sat. When 
Luke says that when he came down 
from the mountain and stood in the 
plain, it is meant that he took position 
upon such a terrace, but in a sitting 
posture.* In the Synagogue of Naza- 
reth he stood, whilst he was reading the 
Haftara, that is, the prophetical selec- 
tion for that Sabbath ; but after he 
folded up the roll and delivered it to 
the schammasch (the sexton of the syn- 
agogue), he pronounced his derascha 
(discourse) sitting, as generally the 
darschan or speaker of the synagogue 
sat, and only he who was authorized to 
interpret to the congregation what had 
been preached, or to repeat it in a 

* Luke vi. 17. 



248 A DAY IN CAPERNAUM. 

louder tone of voice, was obliged to 
stand. Jesus also sat while teaching in 
the Temple at Jerusalem ;"*" and when, at 
the Feast of Tabernacles, he stood in 
the Temple, and, in connection with the 
festal custom of bringing water up from 
Siloam and pouring it upon the altar, 
he cried out, " If any man thirst, let him 
come unto me and drink,'' f this was 
only an appeal to the crowd, and not a 
discourse. We also see him sitting on 
the mount at the feeding of the five 
thousand and the four thousand, \ and 
where the three evangelists, who, in a 
connected series of parables, give us a 
picture of our Lord's teaching by para- 

* John viii. 2. 

f John vi. 3, vii. 37; Matt. xv. 29. 

\ Matt. xiii. 1,2; Luke vi. 3 ; Mark iv. i. 



NIGHT. 249 

bles, he sits on the shore of the Sea of 
Genesar, and as the immense crowd 
incommoded him, " He entered into one 
of the ships which was Simon's, and 
prayed him that he would thrust out a 
little from the land ; and he sat down 
and taught the people out of the ship/' ^' 
We also see him in Capernaum sitting. 
In this posture, he called the Twelve to 
him, and, taking a child into his arms, 
he delivers a discourse on becoming 
like little children.^ And when his 
mother and his brethren ' are seeking 
him in Capernaum, they find him in the 
house, and the multitude sat about him. J 
This is a scene similar to that when 
Ezekiel, the prophet of the Babylonish 

* Mark ix. 35-37. 

fMarkiii. 31. JEzek. viii. i. 



2SO A DAY IN CAPERNAUM. 

exiles, is seated in his house at Tel Abib, 
and the elders of Juda are seated 
around him, hearing the word of God.* 
We would then be committing an error 
if we represented Jesus as speaking to 
the people in a standing posture. 

Under the solitary palm-tree there 
lay a shapeless stone, upon which many 
a one before had sat, either for the pur- 
pose of meditation under the shadow 
of its leaves, or to enjoy a view of the 
active life upon the lake before him. 
The academy at Jabne (Jamnia) had 
the form of an arena ; and, seated upon 
a simple stone after the destruction of 
Jerusalem, Eliezer ben-Azaria, elevated 
to the Patriarchate, held his lectures. 

* Derenbourg, Hist, et Geog. de la Palestine 
d'apres les Thalmuds, I. p. 366. 



NIGHT. 251 

It was hence nothing extraordinary, if 
Jesus, the extraordinary rabbi, should at 
this time take his seat upon a stone, and 
use it as his pulpit. 

How did he begin ? we ask further ; 
how did he address the assembly ? The 
evangelists give us no direct informa- 
tion, for their interest in the form of 
Christ's discourses is subordinate to the 
interest in their master. The discourses 
to the Apostles, which the four gospels 
report, do not contain any preliminary 
address, and of the sermons to the 
people,"^ there is only one given to us in 
an extensive form, which is the Sermon 
on the Mount, which begins with beati- 
tudes, and in which we could not look 

* To the people, or, according to Matt. v. i, 
Luke vi. 20, to the larger circle of disciples. 



252 A DAY IN CAPERNAUM. 

for anything like an address. At other 
places, we hear him addressing Cho- 
razin, Bethsaida, and Capernaum, over 
which he utters woes ; and the Pharisees 
and Scribes, from whom in eightfold 
woes he tears the hypocritical mask; 
and Jerusalem, the prophet-murdering 
city, to which, amid tears, he announces 
its destined judgment, which it had 
brought upon itself by the rejection of 
the offered salvation.* But with what 
words he began his discourses to the 
people assembled in the synagogues, in 
Jerusalem, and in the open air, we do 
not hear. We must then be contented 
with the following conclusion : When 
he addresses the women of Jerusalem, 
who, weeping and lamenting, followed 
* Matt, xxiii. 37 ; Luke xix. 41 --44. 



NIGHT. 253 

him to the place of execution, as 
" Daughters of Jerusalem," * so would 
he address his audience composed chief- 
ly of men as " Sons of Israel,'' because 
he preferred calling his people by that 
honorable historical name Israel.-^ 
Only once, in conversation with the 
woman of Samaria, did he use ihe 
name Jew, and not even then without 
according to the Jew the honor due 
him, in saying, " For salvation is of the 
Jews." J But how he addressed the 
Israelites of Galilee, or of Judea, or of 
Jerusalem, we may conjecture from that 
exclamation in Acts i. 2 : " Ye men of 
Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into 
heaven?" If the Lord, as on the 

* Luke xxiii. 28. f Matt. xiii. 10; vi. 23. 
J John iv. 21. 
22 



254 A DAY IN CAPERNAUM. 

evening of which we are speaking, had 
spoken to a crowd assembled around 
him in GaHlee, his address would have 
been, '' Sons of Israel, Men of Galilee ! '' 
[Bene lisrael, Ansche ha- Galli /) 

Moreover, when we represent to our 
minds the style of Jesus' preaching, we 
dare not measure it by our rhetorical 
and homiletical conceptions. As he 
took upon him our flesh and blood, so 
he shows himself in his discourses, not- 
withstanding the new and peculiar char- 
acter of their matter, to be the son of 
a Semitish and especially of a Jewish 
people. The Japhetic style of discourse 
is characterized by establishing a point, 
then describing a circle around that 
point, and within this circle drawing 
radii to all parts of the circle. The 



NIGHT. 255 

Semitic, on the other hand, joins point 
to point in a linear direction, and is con- 
tented with the internal unity of spirit 
and of design. This combination of 
thought is further distinguished from 
the development of thought of the 
Japhetic style in this, that the idea 
struggles out of its pure conception 
into embodiment, and either clothes 
itself in a figurative expression, or il- 
lustrates itself by a picture or a para- 
ble. He who is acquainted with the 
Talmud and Midrasch, knows that illus- 
tration by parables is a characteristic 
and fundamental feature, particularly 
of the Jewish method of instruction. 
A natural consequence of this predi- 
lection for sententiousness and figura- 
tive speech is brevity of discourse. It 



256 A DAY In CAPERNAUM. 

dare not extend Itself to any length, so 
as not to overburden the hearers, but 
to allow them time for reflection. And 
as with teachers, who are not them- 
selves organs of divine revelation, 
everything deserving recognition must 
be gathered from the existing revealed 
records, so these discourses have this 
in common, that they in part begin with 
Scripture language as their foundation, 
and in part end with it as their proof. 
An example may serve as an illustra- 
tion. Founded on the words, " For he 
hath closed me with the garments of 
salvation," from that same 61 st chapter 
of Isaiah, from which Jesus took his 
text in the Synagogue of Nazareth, 
there is extant an ancient discourse.* 
* Pesikta de-Rab Cahana, 149^. 



NIGHT. 257 

There are seven garments, which the 
Holy One, blessed be he, has put on, 
and will put on, since the creation of 
the world until the hour when he shall 
punish the ungodly Edom (a figurative 
designation of the Roman empire). 
When he created the world he clothed 
himself in honor and majesty, for it is 
said in Psalm civ. i, "Thou art clothed 
with honor and majesty." When he 
revealed himself at the Red Sea, he 
clothed himself in glory, for it is said 
in Psalm xciii. i, "The Lord reigneth; 
He is clothed with majesty (glory).'' 
When he gave the Law, he clothed 
himself in strength, for it is said. Psalm 
xciii. I, "He is clothed with strength.'' 
As often as he forgave Israel's sins, he 
clothed himself in white, for it is said 

22* R 



2S8 A DAY IN CAPERNAUM. 

in Dan. vii. 9, " His garment was white 
as snow/' When he punishes the na- 
tions, he clothes himself in the apparel 
of vengeance, for it is said in Is. lix. 1 7, 
" He put on the garments of ven- 
geance, and was clad with zeal as with 
a cloak.'' The sixth garment he will 
put on when the Messiah shall be re- 
vealed ; then he will clothe himself in 
righteousness, for it is said in Is. lix. 
17, "For He put on righteousness 
as a breast-plate and a helmet of sal- 
vation upon his head." The seventh 
garment he will put on when he shall 
punish Edom, then he will clothe him- 
self in Adom, that is, in red, for it 
is said in Is. Ixiii. 2, "Wherefore art 
thou red in thine apparel ? " But the 
garment which he will put on the 



NIGHT. 259 

Messiah will beam from one end of the 
world to another, for it is said in Is. 
Ixi. 10, "As a bridegroom decketh 
himself (as a priest) with ornaments." 
And the Israelites will enjoy his light 
and say, Blessed is the hour when the 
Messiah appeareth : blessed is the body 
that bare thee : * blessed the people who 
were eye-witnesses : blessed are the 
eyes which have seen thee ! for the 
opening of his lips is peace and bless- 
ing ; his speech is composure of mind;f 
the thoughts of his heart are confidence 
and courage ; the words of his mouth 
are forgiveness ; his prayer is the fra- 
grance of the sacrifice ; his intercession 
is J holiness and purity. Oh ! how 

* Lukb xi. 27. f Matt. xiii. 16 ; Luke x. 23. 
J ''Rest for your souls,'* Matt. xi. 29. 



260 A DAY IN CAPERNAUM. 

blessed is Israel, for whom all this is 
preserved, for it is said in Psalm xxxi. 
19, "Oh, how great is thy goodness 
which thou hast laid up for them that 
fear thee ! " 

This representation of the Messiah 
is, as it were, a mirrored picture of the 
appearance of Christ, an echo of the 
gospels. When the disciples upon the 
Mount of Transfiguration experienced 
a foretaste of his future glory, the daz- 
zling white of his raiment was not 
wanting.* But, at that time, when he 
sat upon the stone under the palm- 
tree, his clothing was indeed pure and 
neat, but not sumptuous, and in no 
degree remarkable. He wore upon 
his head, as we have already once seen 
* Luke ix. 29 ; Matt. xvii. 2 



NIGHT. 261 

him, between Cana of Galilee and Kefar 
Kenna, a white sudar, fastened under 
the chin with a buckle, and hanging 
b^ck upon the shoulders. Over the 
tunic, covering his body even to his 
feet and hands, he wore the blue tallith^ 
with bluish-white tassels at the four 
corners so thrown over him and held 
together that the gray-red striped under- 
garment was almost entirely concealed, 
and only occasionally were his feet, fur- 
nished not with shoes, but with sandals, 
visible. As he sat down and cast his 
eyes over the assembly, the people 
became more and more silent, until 
nothing was heard except the waves 
of the lake gently breaking upon the 
shore. And as he began his discourse 
with Bene lisrael, Ansche ha-Galli, he 



262 A DAY IN CAPERNAUM. 

did not speak with a "loud/' that is, 
with a forced and vehement voice, which 
is reported of him only on two occa- 
sions: when he cried out loud at the 
grave of Lazarus, and when he uttered 
the dying exclamation upon the cross. 
Herein was the realization of the idea 
of God's servant, of whom Isaiah proph- 
esies,* " He shall not cry, nor lift up, 
nor cause his voice to be heard in the 
streets,'' that is, not seek to secure 
recognition and adherents by charlatan 
display. His voice was clear, penetrat- 
ing, moderate, melodious ; it rang like 
silver tones from one end of the assem- 
bly to the other, and it was impossible 
not to be enchained by it. The whole 
energy of his soul was expressed in his 
"^ b, xlii. z \ Matt. xii. 19. 



NIGHT. 263 

words, and the strings of every human 
spirit vibrated in response, and he who 
without resistance yielded to the divine- 
ly potent influence of his words, was 
compelled to say, "My inmost being 
sounded like a harp/' * 

He sat upon the stone under the 
palm ; to his right and left stood Simon 
and Andrew, the sons of Jona,f and 
James and John, the sons of Zebedee. 
The people were sitting down close up 
to his feet. " Sons of Israel ! Men of 
Galilee ! '' thus he began,. " the time is 
fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at 
hand ; repent ye and believe the gos- 
pel ! { Moses, your teacher, peace be 
with him, has said, ' The Lord thy God 
will raise thee up a prophet from the 

* Is. xvi. II. f John i. 42. J Mark i. 15. 



264 A DAY IN CAPERNAUM. 

midst of thee ; unto him shall ye 
hearken ; but whosoever will not heark- 
en to him shall die/* Amen I say 
unto you, he that believeth on me hath 
everlasting life.f No man knoweth the 
Son but the Father, neither knoweth 
any man the Father save the Son, and 
he to whomsoever the Lord will reveal 
him." J And then, in a more elevated 
tone, he continued, " Come unto me all 
ye that labor and are heavy-laden, and 
I will give you rest. § Take my yoke 
upon you and learn of me, for I am 
meek and lowly of mind, and ye shall 
find rest for your souls, for my yoke is 
easy and my burden is light.'* And, 
coming to the conclusion, he said, 

*Deut. xviii. 15. f Johnvi. 47. 

I Matt, xxvii, ii, § Matt, xxvii. 12, 



NIGHT. 265 

" Take upon you the yoke of the king- 
dom of heaven, for the kingdom of 
heaven is the fulfilment of the law and 
the prophets. Part with that which is 
of little worth, that you may secure 
that which is above all price. Be ex- 
pert exchangers, who value sacred 
coins higher than common ones, and 
above everything else, the single price- 
less pearl. He that hath ears to hear, 
let him hear ! '' 

We must associate discourses of this 
character with the personality of the 
speaker in order to measure the weight 
of the impression they make. They 
penetrated into the hearts of the hear- 
ers like goads and nails,* and not a few 
of the expressions of Jesus, brought 

^Eccles. xii. 11. 
23 



266 A DAY IN CAPERNAUM. 

into common use by Jewish Christians, 
are found in the Tahnud and Midrasch. 
Many of them, however, are entirely 
original. That concluding appeal to 
reflection, '' He that hath ears to hear, 
let him hear,'' ^ is exclusively peculiar 
to him ; and the assuring beginning of 
his sermons, "Amen (verily),! say unto 
you,'' which is the language of the 
country, is thus expressed. Amen, amena 
leckdUy •\ is unheard of in the whole 
compass of Jewish literature. This 
amen, prefacing the discourse, is idio- 
matic with Jesus, so characteristic, that 
not without reference to it, he is called 
" the Amen, the true and faithful Wit- 
ness," in Rev. iii. 14. 

* Matt. xi. 15 ; xiii. 9-43, &c. 
f See the author's Talmudische Studien, in 
Luth. Zeitschrift, 1856, p. 422-24. 



NIGHT. 267 

In the meantime, the evening crimson 
of the heavens had long vanished. The 
full-moon had already risen so high over 
the hills on the other side, that it was 
mirrored in all the fullness of its golden 
splendor in the lake ; and, on this side, 
the evening star, as if born of the twi- 
light crimson, smiled down upon the 
earth, and the refreshing breeze set the 
leaf- stems of the palm, with their 
feathery leaves, into a gentle agitation. 
The evening was far enough advanced 
to give place to the watch of the night. 
Jesus rose, and, whilst he sometimes 
suddenly withdrew from the people,* 
he dismissed them this time with words 
of admonition and the salutation of 
peace. As he lifted up his hands in 
*Matt. xiii. 36; xiv. 23. 



268 A DAY IN CAPERNAUM. 

benediction,"^ his eyes fell upon his 
mother. After his farewell words, he 
turned to the left, and whispered to 
John and James, "Take care of my 
mother ! " and departed in a southern 
direction, and, amid stones and bram- 
bles, ascended an elevation of the range 
of hills that here incline gently towards 
the shore. He loved the solitude of 
the hills, and many a hill summit of 
Galilee and Peraea, to which he retired 
for prayer, was consecrated by him as 
a bethel (house of God). It was only 
after he had arrived at this place this 
evening, and the turmoil of the world 
lay at his feet, that he enjoyed perfect 
rest after the work of the day. With- 
out having shut himself out from the 
*>Luke xxiv. 50. 



NIGHT. 269 

external world, or forgotten mankind, 
he was still entirely absorbed in prayer, 
and celebrated an internal Sabbath. 
His view extended over land and water, 
and embraced all in his affection, and 
rested upon all the places round about 
with the salutation of peace. He ex- 
tended his arms, pressed the world to 
his heart, fell with it down before God, 
and lifted it up as through his heart's 
blood; an offering to God. He touched 
the very ground with his brow, and the 
hair of his head lay upon it like a cov- 
ering veil. Soon he rose slowly, as 
though he were lifting up the whole 
earth with him, and stretched himself 
higher and higher towards heaven, as 
though he were rising above his natural 

size. He spake and was silent, and 
23* 



270 A DAY IN CAPERNAUM. 

Spake. His prayer was an interchange 
of conversation with God. His speech 
was low, and more of a whisper than a 
tone. But at last it became trium- 
phantly and jubilantly loud, so that the 
hillsides echoed it back. Nature all 
round, until now sunk in unbroken 
silence, became so animated, as if the 
morning was breaking at midnight. 
The locusts vied with each other in 
their stridulant sounds; the birds ex- 
erted all their powers of song ; the tree- 
tops bent and rustled ; the stream began, 
as if having broken through an ob- 
struction, to splash more nimbly, and 
the waves of Genesar rolled over each 
other in their pressure towards the 
western shore, and struck in thundering 
breakers against the landing-places of 



NIGHT. 271 

Capernaum and Tiberias. But the 
mysterious man of prayer, as if over- 
whelmed with rapture, lay upon his face, 
and hastened, after he had risen, with 
winged steps towards the city, still 
wrapped in sleep, to the house upon 
the hill, where the mother of Peter 
opened the door as he knocked. She 
lighted him to his chamber, where he 
extended himself upon the couch, and 
immediately sank into a gentle sleep. 
His thoughts were smothered in the 
contemplation of the counsels of God. 
He rested in God's love, and the peace 
of God encircled him. 



FRANCIS DELITZSCH. 

A SKETCH. 
. C. P? KRAUTH, D. D. 




273 




FRANCIS DELITZSCH. 

HIS LIFE AND WORKS. 
A SKETCH. 

THE name of Francis Delitzsch is famil- 
iar to every student of German theology, 
as that of one of the greatest masters of our 
age in the departments of Old and of New 
Testament Exegesis, and in the immense field 
of the Jewish literature of the eras which have 
followed the completion of the Biblical Canon. 
He was born, February 23d, 181 3, at Leipzig. 
The mother of Delitzsch was a pious woman, 
of humble position ; his father was the pro- 
prietor of a stall of antiquarian books, a de- 
vout Jew originally, and who only four weeks 
before his death received Christian baptism. 

The father's name was Leon. The name at 

275 



2^6 FRANCIS DELITZSCH. 

present borne by the family is derived from 
the town of Dehtzsch in the Prussian circle 
of Merseburg. 

In his native place, at the most ancient of 
the great Lutheran universities, he devoted 
himself to theological . and oriental studies. 
Among his instructors was the distinguished 
Egyptiologist, Dr. Seyffarth. He subsequent- 
ly passed through the habilitation which 
gave him the rights of a private lecturer 
within the venerable walls which had become 
familiar to him as a student. 

In 1846, he was called to occupy the chair 
of theology as Ordinary Professor at Rostock, 
whose university is next in age to that of 
Leipzig, with but indeed a difference of ten 
years, which, in the long life of universities 
of mediaeval origin, is a trifle. 

At the beginning of Michaelmas Term, 
1850, he was transferred to the corresponding 
Chair at Erlangen, which is '' now the most 



FRANCIS DELITZSCH. 2*J7 

flourishing school of orthodox Lutheranism in 
all Germany, and enjoys great confidence for 
its faithful adherence to the Augsburg Con- 
fession and the Formula of Concord." Here 
Delitzsch labored in conjunction with Tho- 
masius, V. Hofmann, Harnack, and Schmid. 
With these, in the single professorship held 
by the Reformed, is associated Herzog, the 
editor of the Real-Encyclopedia, who suc- 
ceeded Ebrard. 

Delitzsch has been an unwearied laborer 
in various departments, presenting the rare 
union of versatility with thoroughness. 
Though his life has been mainly that of a 
theologian, he has nevertheless enriched the 
religious literature of his native land with 
works of a practical and devotional character, 
adapted in a high degree alike for the people 
and the preacher. These works are pro- 
foundly reverent, full of high thought and 

deep feeling, showing everywhere that the 
24 



278 FRANCIS DELITZSCH. 

largest originality, trained by the most 
thorough learning, is perfect in its consist- 
ency and beautiful in its union with an unre- 
served faith in the word of God, and with 
fidelity to the Confession which His Church 
has grounded upon it. It is not wonderful, 
therefore, that these works have been widely 
received with admiration and gratitude, as 
precious gifts for the Christian mind and the 
Christian heart. Among the most important 
of this class of his works may be mentioned 
the '* Casket of Spiritual Epigrams and 
Maxims in Rhyme," (Dresden, 1842;) ''The 
Sacrament of the True Body and Blood of 
Jesus Christ," (Dresden, 1844; 4th. ed. 1864, 
5th. ed. 1 87 1,) the most popular of his practi- 
cal writings ; '* Four Books on the Church," 
(Dresden, 1847;) ^' On the House of God, or 
the Church," (Dresden, 1848.) The four- 
teenth original edition of his ''Manual on the 
Lord's Prayer" appeared in 1854. It is a 



FRANCIS DELITZSCH. 2/9 

work of but some 380 pages, i6mo; yet the 
possessor of many volumes in theology 
might find that this httle book was worth 
all the rest, as the means of aiding him in 
the full comprehension of that prayer. The 
introduction to the work has been translated 
by Rev. G. F. Krotel, D. D., and appeared 
in the " Evangelical Review/' 

The great labors of this^noble life, how- 
ever, have, in the nature of the case, been of 
a character in which the learned world would 
more particularly feel an interest His ear- 
liest works were mainly devoted to Jewish 
literature. His " History of Jewish Poetry, 
from the close of the Holy Scriptures to the 
Present,'* (Leipzig, 1836,) written with the fire 
of youth, opened to the Christian world a do- 
main of literature hitherto wholly unknown. 
The Hebrew remoulding, by the Jewish poet 
Suzzato, under the title of *' Migdal Oz,'* of 
Guarini's pastoral drama, *' The Pastor Fido," 



280 FRANCIS DELITZSCH. 

which Delitzsch edited, (Leipzig, 1837,) g^ve 
to the world the first insight into a history 
of the drama among the Jews, a drama, the 
very existence of which had hitherto hardly 
been suspected. 

A little book from his pen, entitled, " Sci- 
ence, Art, Judaism — Pictures and Critiques," 
appeared, (Grimma,) 1838. It is dedicated to 
Guericke, and in the first essay speaks of 
the love and confidence with which its author 
regarded Martin Stephan, in whose very" 
name he found a suggestion of affinity with 
Luther; and with the protomartyr, with 
whom he once contemplated coming, in that 
sad navigation, to this Western World, whose 
unhappy earlier issues we all know so well, 
but which God has overruled for so much 
ultimate good. The contributions to the 
mediaeval scholasticism ** Among the Jews 
and Moslems,'' (Leipzig, 1841,) brought to 
light various productions of the scholastic 



FRANCIS DELITZSCH. 28l 

lore of the Jews, which had hitherto been 
lying in manuscript. 

In his Latin work, entitled "Jesurun," 
(Leipzig, 1838,) he gave an introduction to 
Hebrew Grammar and Lexicography, in 
which he maintained, in an enthusiastic and 
somewhat extravagant manner, in the judg- 
ment of some, the views in regard to the re- 
lation of the Semitic to the Indo-Germanic 
languages, which had been set forth by Fiirst 
in his earliest work on the idioms of the 
Aramaic, one design of which was to give its 
due place to the Semitic element, in the 
then infant science of Comparative Philology, 

(1835.) 

In the department of Scientific Theology, 
many works of great value have been pub- 
lished by Delitzsch. The earlier of these, 
*'The Biblico-Prophetic Theology," (Leipzig, 
1845,) forms the opening volume of a work 

under the title of '' Biblico-Theological and 
24* 



282 FRANCIS DELITZSCH. 

Apologetico-Critical Studies/* begun by him 
in conjunction with Charles Paul Caspar!, 
the eminent Old Testament scholar, Pro- 
fessor in the Norwegian university of Chris- 
tiana. 

Another work which belongs here is the 
'^System of Biblical Psychology/* (1855; 2d 
edition, 1861,) translated into English for 
Clark's For. Theo. Libn, 1867. In the Cata* 
logue of that house it appears with this no- 
tice: — "A System of Biblical Psychology. 
Contents : — Prolegomena. I. The Everlast- 
ing Postulates. II. The Creation. III. The 
Fall. IV. The Natural Condition. V. The 
Regeneration, VI. Death. VII. Resurrec- 
tion and Consummation. Translated from 
the last German edition by Rev. Dr. Wallis. 
Second edition. 8vo." 

*' This admirable volume ought to be care- 
fully read by every thinking clergyman. 
There is a growing Gnosticism which re- 



FRANCIS DELITZSCH. 283 

quires to be met by philosophical explana- 
tions of the Christian system, quite as much 
as, and even more than, by dogmatic state- 
ments of received truths ; and we know no 
work which is better calculated as a guide to 
minds already settled on lines of sound theo- 
logical principle, than the one we are about 
to bring before the notice of our readers." — 
Literary Churchman, 

It is a profound exegetical investigation of 
the Biblical teachings on all the questions 
pertaining to the human soul, with which it 
combines all the light afforded by experience 
and history in the settlement of the difficult 
psychological questions of our day. A 
leading secular periodical of Germany says 
of it : " To the searcher of philosophy, and 
to the student of nature, it puts forth a help- 
ing hand — the hand, not of a beggar, but of 
a prince — a hand able to impart knowledge, 
where the knowledge supplied by the search 
of nature fails in despair." 



284 FRANCIS DELITZSCH. 

The first edition of his "Exposition of 
Genesis'* appeared at Leipzig, 1852, and was 
received with such favor that a new and 
greatly enlarged edition, with important im- 
provements, appeared in the following year. 
It was followed by a third edition, i860, 
which was rewrought throughout in 1872. 
A translation of this Commentary, from 
the hand of the writer of this sketch, was 
announced by Smith and English, and had 
made considerable progress ; but the unpro- 
pitious character of the times which followed 
(the years of our Civil War) delayed its ap- 
pearance. A portion of the translation of 
the Introduction appeared in print. The 
"Song of Solomon" was published, 185 1 ; 
"Habakkuk," 1854. 

The hermeneutical labors of Delitzsch 
have been mainly on Old Testament subjects, 
and these peculiarly fitted him to become a 
commentator on the great Epistle, which 



FRANCIS DELITZSCH. 28$ 

may be called the Old Testament transfigured 
into the New. His masterly Commentary on 
the Epistle to the Hebrews, with Archae- 
ological Excursus on Sacrifice and Atone- 
ment, appeared in Leipzig, 1857. The labors 
on this book began in 1846, while he was 
yet at Rostock. They were continued with 
an indefatigable earnestness, the fruits of 
which are found in an Exposition, which, in 
philological, critical, and archaeological re- 
spects, utterly throws into the shade even 
the Commentaries of Bleek and Tholuck on 
the Hebrews, though those works are con- 
fessedly among the masterpieces in inter- 
pretation. The latest results of grammatical 
investigation, as presented by Mullach and 
Alexander Buttman, the classic parallels, the 
rich stores of Talmudic literature drawn from 
the originals, are inwrought in the reproduc- 
tive method in which Genesis had been 
treated, a method which Delitzsch is the first 



286 FRANCIS DELITZSCH. 

to employ throughout on a New Testament 
book. (Translated into English, Clark's For. 
Theol. Lib., 1 868-1 870 — Biblical Commen- 
tary on the Epistle to the Hebrews. Two 
vols., 8vo.) 

" Not only in the interpretation of the 
Epistle has the theological department re- 
ceived especial care, but also the gram- 
matical, critical, and the archaeological." — 
Ecclesiastical Gazette, 

He wrote " New Investigations Touching 
the Origin and Plan of the Canonical Gos- 
pels," 1853. 

In addition to these larger works he has 
written numerous monographs and disserta- 
tions, many of which have been furnished 
to periodicals, especially to Rudelbach and 
Guericke^s Quarterly, to whose Book Notices, 
also he is a regular contributor. 

*'As an Exegetical writer, Delitzsch be- 
longs to the circle of Hofman, Baumgarten, 



FRANCIS DELITZSCH. 28/ 

Kurtz, and Caspari." This does not, how- 
ever, imply that in all respects, even in all 
important ones, he would maintain the views 
they may hold in particular cases. The er- 
roneous judgment, for example, on the sub- 
ject of the Atonement, maintained so ably by 
Hofman in the second part of his " Scripture 
Proof," Delitzsch considers as utterly ground- 
less. His position as to Christian theology 
is that of a positive faith derived from Reve- 
lation, and this faith he finds confessed in the 
doctrinal standards of the Evangelical Lu- 
theran Church. 

Delitzsch's Commentary on the Psalms ap- 
peared in two volumes, 1859-60, 2d edition; 
newly elaborated, 1867; translated into Eng- 
lish, Clark's For. Theol. Lib., 1 871 — Biblical 
Commentary on the Psalms. Translated 
from the German (from the second edition, 
revised throughout) by the Rev. Francis 
Bolton, B. A. Three vols., 8vo. 



288 FRANCIS DELITZSCH. 

''We welcome with peculiar satisfaction 
this work of Dr. Delitzsch, . . . and we 
think it almost unrivalled. Very heartily 
do we commend this book to our readers.'' 

Literary Church^nan, 

'* There is much that is very precious in 
this Commentary. . . . The prefatory mat- 
ter in the first volume, of the nature of in- 
troduction, is very valuable and instructive." 

Weekly Review. 

To this and his other larger works have 
been devoted the toils of twenty-eight years. 
He had entered the field when, with all the 
richness of the harvest, the laborers were 
few. God has shown, by His rich blessings 
on the labors of this master-workman, that 
he had not mistaken his vocation, and he 
comes again and again rejoicing, bringing 
another sheaf with him. For sixteen years 
Delitzsch lectured on portions of the Psalms, 
and a work introductory to them was pub- 
lished by him in 1846, and he wrote a criti- 



FRANCIS DELITZSCH. 289 

cal Preface to Baer's edition of them, i860. 
In the preface to his new work he refers 
to the great merits of Hengstenberg's 
labors, and says that only on rationalistic 
grounds is it possible to ignore their epoch- 
making character. His whole characteriza- 
tion of Hengstenberg is beautiful and noble, 
the more so because that great scholar had 
not only sometimes combated the views of 
Delitzsch, but had shown, apparently, in 
some instances, a spirit of prejudice against 
him. As regards the merits of this Com- 
mentary, we have no room now to speak at 
large. Let it suffice to say that, following 
Hengstenberg, Stier, Umbreit, Tholuck, and 
last, but very far from least, Alexander, it is 
worth far more than all of them. It would be 
better to have Delitzsch on the Psalms, and 
nothing else, than to have everything else 
and not Delitzsch. 

In 1867 he was called to a Chair on the 
25 T 



290 FRANCIS DELITZSCH. 

Theological Faculty in Leipzig. His col- 
leagues there are Kahnis, Luthardt, Lechler, 
Fricke, Tischendorf, Gustavus Baur, Hole- 
mann, Rudolf Hoffmann, and Woldemar 
Gottlob Schmidt. 

In conjunction with Keil, he is now edit- 
ing a Biblical Commentary on the Old Tes- 
tament. The following are the new parts 
which have appeared from his hand : 

I. Job, 1864: Translated into English, 
Clark's For. Th. Lib., 1 866 — Biblical Com- 
mentary on the Book of Job. Two vols., 8vo. 

" Unquestionably the most valuable work 
on this inexhaustibly interesting scripture 
that has reached us from Germany.'* — Non- 
conformist 

" Dr. Delitzsch combines thorough ortho- 
doxy and spirituality of tone with a large 
and sympathetic appreciation for the methods 
and results of modern critical research. But 
it has also far stronger claims for approba- 
tion on account of special and intrinsic va^x- 
xX^r -^ Literary Churchman. 



FRANCIS DELITZSCH. 29I 

2. Isaiah, 1866. Translated into English, 
Clark's For. Theol. Lib. — Biblical Commen- 
tary on the Prophecies of Isaiah. Two vols., 
8vo. 

" The author has long been honorably dis- 
tinguished among the scholars of Germany. 
He occupies, indeed, a position always pecu- 
liar to himself; for, whilst his attainments 
in Hebrew philology and Talmudical lore 
are of the highest order, he unites with these 
a genuine appreciation of evangelical truth 
and godliness.'' — Literary Churchman, 

In his " Manuscript Discoveries,'* Parts I., 
II., Leipzig, i86i,'62, he made contributions 
to the textual criticism of the Apocalypse. 
Among smaller recent works from his hand 
may be mentioned : " Behold the Man ! A 
Historical Picture." 1869. "Jesus and Hil- 
lel, with reference to Renan and Geiger com- 
pared." 1867. '' Handicraft Life in the Time 
of Jesus : a Contribution to the History of 
New Testament Times," \ 868, — a little work 



292 FRANCIS DELITZSCH. 

of extraordinary richness of matter and charm 
of style. The chapter '' A June Day in Jeru- 
salem within the last ten years before Christ," 
is a masterpiece of learning popularized, of 
descriptive power, and of pathos. "The 
Messiah as Propitiator: a Testimony, with 
Proofs, addressed to Educated Jews/' writ- 
ten for the Paris Exposition. 1867. 

" The System of Christian Apologetics," 
Leipzig, 1869, is one of the ablest books of 
its class, — " one of the most perfect produc- 
tions in German theology, a book which 
makes an epoch, and by the sterling quali- 
ties of its matter and the artistic character 
of its form, takes its place as classic." 

In 1 87 1 he published a translation of the 
Epistle to the Romans into Hebrew, follow- 
ing the text of the Codex Sinaiticus, and 
adding illustrative notes from the Talmud 
and Midrasch. 

"A Day in Capernaum" appeared in 1871. 



FRANCIS DELITZSCH. 293 

This is the book whose appearance in Eng- 
lish we owe to Dr. J. G. Morris, of Baltimore, 
who has given us a translation worthy of the 
original, improving it for popular use, by the 
omission of that part of the notes which is 
designed only for a class of scholars of whom 
we have not a half dozen in America, and 
which would be, not simply useless, but ap- 
palling to the mass of readers. The sort of 
conception in which the book has originated 
is one which in a very general way has led to 
various admirable works, both in secular and 
religious literature, but it has rarely been 
wrought out with such learning, originality, 
and spirit as are here revealed. The general 
conception of the class to which it belongs is 
to give to history the life of its own day ; by 
minute details and touches of descriptive art 
to place the reader in the past, as in a present. 
It is historical painting. It differs from the 
historical romance, in vigorously confining 
25* 



294 FRANCIS DELITZSCH. 

itself to the verities of the case. It conforms 
to history throughout, and not only is nothing 
said or done that might not have been said 
or done, but the events and conversations are 
detailed as in a general way they must have 
occurred. 

The distinctive purpose of Delitzsch in this 
book is to present, within the compass of a 
single day, a vivid picture of the work of our 
Lord in Galilee. His materials are furnished 
by the narratives of the Evangelists, inter- 
woven with each other and with everything 
which Sacred Antiquities and History con- 
tain for enlarging and illustrating them. To 
this part of the work the author has brought 
everything scattered in Josephus, the Talmud, 
and Midrasch (the Exposition of the Torah 
and Mishnah), and in all the Ancient Jewish 
Literature, in which Delitzsch is one of the 
greatest masters the world has ever known. 

But the learning which has accumulated 



FRANCIS DELITZSCH. 295 

the material has been but the handmaiden to 
the higher purpose of the work. The imagi- 
nation of the author has had to transfuse it- 
self into the scenes of that wonderful life 
which stands alone in the annals of time, to 
bring our Lord before its own close but rev- 
erential gaze, and thus before the reader, in 
the clearness of an individual presence. 
Years of commonplace iteration have so 
deadened the general mind, that Christ has 
practically ceased to be a reality. The pic- 
tures of the pulpit are too often poor like- 
nesses, in faded water colors, and these are 
the dim, monotonous portrayals which the 
popular mind holds before it- Anything which 
vivifies and actualizes Christ, at once takes 
hold of the hearts of men. '' The Prince of 
the House of David '' is in wretched drawing, 
and its colors are a mere daubing ; but be- 
cause they are a little brighter than is wont, 
the book has been eagerly read by hundreds 



296 FRANCIS DELITZSCH. 

of thousands. Renan, in his glaring delinea- 
tion, has brought the Saviour of the world 
into Paris, in the same spirit, and aided by 
the same hand which once placed Him on 
the exceeding high mountain ; yet, because 
when he falsified he also vivified, he has given 
to Frenchmen the thrill of a French Mes- 
siah. In colors not less vivid, but exquisitely 
pure, — in drawing not less elaborate, but in- 
comparable in its accuracy, Delitzsch has 
brought before us our Redeemer, moving in 
the serene beneficence of His work. We 
stand with our guide on the spot — we see 
Jesus — ** the Man'' is before us — we can 
touch him; — yet is there nothing to weaken 
the divine Majesty of His person, or to im- 
pair the tender awe with which faith, joyous 
yet tremulous, cries out, *' It is the Lord ! " 

A large part of the work was dictated, as 
Delitzsch was deprived of the use of his 
eyes for a time. The book bears marks of 



FRANCIS DELITZSCH. 2<^^ 

the introspection and reproductiveness, 
which are intensified and perfected by cut- 
ting off the external light. To the " dim 
suffusion '* which veiled the eyes of Milton, 
the poet brought the hours of darkness for 
his great work : 

" Thee, Sion, and the flowery brooks beneath, 
That wash thy hallowed feet, and warbling flow, 
Nightly I visit." 

In the prose poem before us, which is a 
leaf from Delitzsch's Conception of Paradise 
Regained, we mark the absorption of soul, 
the complete carrying away in the rapture of 
the heavenly vision, which belong to the time 
of the undistracting eye, the undisturbing 
light. It is music in the night, 

" As the wakeful bird 
Sings darkling, and in shadiest covert hid, 
Tunes her nocturnal note." 

The book has five chapters : The Scene ; 
Morning; Noon; The Vesper Time; Evening. 



298 FRANCIS DELITZSCH. 

The charm of the pictures is wonderful. As 
the day of Him who was fairer than the sons 
of men, the holiest and the best, moves 
before us, the cold misty conception floats 
aside, and there stands unveiled a form of 
divine beauty, breathing the breath of our 
human love glorified, — so sacred, so tender, 
so true, that the heart is borne away in a 
rapture of holy joy, and we whisper, *'The 
Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, 
and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the 
Only-begotten of the Father, full of grace 
and truth." 




RECENT PUBLICATIONS 

OF THE 

Lutheran Publication Society. 



THE UNSEEN WORLD, 

BY T. STORK, D. D. 

A discussion of the article in the Creed, ^^ He de- 
scended into hell, ' ^ and the condition of the soul 
between death and the Judgment. 

SECOND EDITION. 



COMMENDATORY NOTICES. 

From Rev. M. W. Jacobus, D. D., Prof, in Theological 
Seminary of Presbyterian Church, Allegheny City, Pa. 
Dear Doctor : — I have been deeply interested in your 
volume on the Unseen World. You have made a strong 
argument, v^hich, I think, will satisfy many, and ought to 
satisfy all that the " descensus ad inferos, ^^ as taught in the 

Creed is without exegetical foundation No biblical 

doctrine would be lost or compromised by the omission 
of this clause from the Creed. 



From G. D. Boardman, D. D., Pastor of the First Baptist 
Church, Philadelphia. 
My Dear Brother : — I have been very much inter- 
ested in your treatise on the Unseen World. Were that 
I 



branch of the Christian Church with which I am connected 
in the habit of repeating that admirable summary of Chris- 
tian truth, called the Apostles' Creed, I should unite with 
you in urging the elimination from it of the phrase, " He 
descended into hell.'''' The phrase would be objectionable 
to me, not because it conveys an untruth when properly 
explained, but because, as a phrase, it needs formal ex- 
planation, and because, relatively considered, it does not 
seem to be of such cardinal importance as to be worthy a 
place in a symbol so brief as the Apostles'. 



From Rev. Wm. Breed, D.D., Pastor of the Spruce Street 
Presbyterian Church, Philadelphia. 
Dear Brother : — Allow me to thank you for the 
pleasure of perusing your able and interesting book. The 
Unseen World. In its publication you have rendered 
good service to the cause of evangelical truth. It seems 
to me that you have made it very evident that the words 
''^ He descended into helV are an interpolation, and it is 
very certain that they sadly mar the beauty of that com- 
prehensive and compact symbol. 



From Rev. H. W. Warren, D. D., Pastor of the Arch 
Street Methodist Church, Philadelphia. 
Dear Brother: — I like your little work. It is a 
great help to those who would endure as seeing Him, who 
is invisible. It becomes u§^to know thoroughly all that 
God has revealed concerning that future world, that will so 
soon be the present. You do well to protest against the 
interpolation of ** the descent into hell " into the Creed. 
I hope you will soon expunge it. 



From Rl hiladelphia. 

The Unseen World is a work which evinces great 
thought and research, and it is difficult to conceive how a 
candid mind can resist the author's conclusions. The 
argument is fair, conducted in an excellent spirit, and its 
only fault, if it be a fault, is that it is too much condensed. 
The book has my hearty sympathy and approbation. 



OPINIONS OF THE PRESS. 
The various opinions held at different times in the 
Church, upon the state of the dead, are taken up and dis- 
cussed in this volume, and the best conclusions arrived at 
in the light of revelation. Dr. Stork has done his work 
lovingly and well, and the book will cheer and comfort 
the Christian pilgrim on his way to the better countiy. — 
The Presbyterian. 



The subject is handled in an able, scholarly, and scrip- 
tural manner. — Detroit Press. 



The author sustains his positions with citations from em- 
inent ecclesiastical writers, and from the sacred Scriptures, 
and urges that the words, "He descended into hell," 
should be excluded from the Creed. Many of our read- 
ers will be glad to read this interesting little work. — Lu- 
theran Observer. 



The style is simple and clear, and the volume one of 
the best of its kind that we have recently seen. — New 
Orleans Times, 



The author examines the doctrine of a future world in 
his own persuasive style, and ends with practical sugges- 



tions to all classes of Bible readers. No writer can better 
reach our finer feelings than the doctor. — Easton Daily 
Express. 



This beautiful volume, which, not only from the ac- 
knowledged ability and popularity of the author, but the 
deep and all-pervading interest felt by the Christian public 
in the subject on which he writes, will come into veiy wide 
and well-deserved notice. — Methodist Home yournal. 



The book is neatly gotten up, and the Doctor's style is 
elegant and attractive, and the Unseen World is very 
pleasant reading. — The L ^Uheran Visitor, Columbia, S. C. 



The author is a clear and earnest thinker — a beautiful 
writer, who always throws the charms of rhetoric around 
every subject he handles. — Rev, R, W., in Lutheran 
Observer, 

The discussion 'r /olves tht entire subject of the Un- 
seen World, and deals with paradise and purgatory in a 
clear and decisive manner, closing with a chapter of ex- 
cellent practical suggestions. — New York Observer. 



The type and topics are so fascinating, that we have 
ventured to peep between the pretty covers, and "sight'* 
the aim of the book, and we are free to say, we think his 
views, in the main, scriptural, and so, of course, sensible. 
The Advance. 



Dr. Stork writes evidently with a thorough knowledge 
of his subject, and his opinions with regard to the Scrip- 
ture teachings on the subject of the Unseen World are 



«.^'.f 



